Piet Wiersma pulls out of the Valencia Marathon

Speaking to SABC Sport, the Dutch-born athlete revealed that he will instead focus on competing in the Seville Marathon in February, citing a lack of preparation for Valencia.

Wiersma, who competes across a range of distances from ultra-marathons to standard marathons, emphasized the importance of building mileage and ensuring thorough preparation before tackling marathons.

"Yeah, when I was running a 10km in Durban in October there was still expectations in terms of how my body has changed since Comrades [Marathon] because I had, had a few good weeks of training in Kenya,” Wiersma said.

“At the end of the race, I was actually not well because I had been sick that day and I actually got a fever that evening. So, of course, that definitely affected my performance but at the same time I also realised okay, it's just gonna take longer for my body to adjust to these distances than I thought because that was my first race that was shorter than a marathon in five or six years.

“There are certain things I haven't done in those five years that I'm doing now that is gonna take time, especially from running fast comrades to running a fast marathon."

READ: Thabang Mosiako not in a hurry to find a new coach

Wiersma aims to improve his speed in shorter-distance races and incorporate that strength into his marathon performances.

While acknowledging the need for more time to fully transition to the marathon, he remains confident that he will ultimately master the distance.

"I have some speed especially bringing those two together towards speed endurance, towards running certain paces for longer periods of time. It's just a different animal from Comrades and also it's shorter distances and it's just something that's not easy that I've realised like okay, I need to kind of rework my body in some way,” he added.

“I need to cut some weight, training last month especially coming back to Kenya after Durban has gone very well. I've had some issues unfortunately but I've been able to work through them in training at least. So, yeah, I've made another step since last time and I'm excited."