Tim Noakes

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Professor Timothy Noakes is a world-renowned professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town. He has run more than 70 marathons and ultramarathons, and is the author of the running book "Lore of Running" (ISBN 0-87322-959-2).He was born in 1949 and attended Monterey Preparatory School in Constantia, Cape Town, then Diocesan College. As a young boy his main sporting interest was cricket.

In 1980 Prof Noakes was tasked to start a sports science course at the University of Cape Town. From these humble beginnings Prof Noakes went on head the Medical Research Council funded "Bioenergetics of Exercise Research Unit," (BERU), which was later changed to the MRC/UCT Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine.

In the early 1990's Prof Noakes co-founded the Sports Science Institute of South Africa with former South African rugby player Morne du Plessis. In these new facilities his research unit's physiological research has thrived since 1996, producing over 370 scientific articles (and counting) during this time period.

Although Prof Noakes is well know in academic circles for the high caliber of his scientific insight and work, he is perhaps best know for being the first to publish a scientific paper on the condition now know as Exercise Associated Hyponatremia (EAH). He first recognized this condition in a female runner during the 1984 Comrades Marathon, and published his findings in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise in 1985. Prof Noakes continues to contribute to our understanding of this condition.

Noakes is also well known for challenging common and old paradigms in the discipline of Exercise Physiology, namely the VO2 max plateau theory. More recently he has produced much evidence for a central governor model of exercise in which the brain is the primary organ that dictates how fast, how long, and how hard humans can exercise.

In 2004 he was awarded a Doctorate in Science (DSc), the highest degree the University of Cape Town can award, for his seminal contributions over the years. He is also the author of the popular book and "runner's bible," The Lore of Running, which is in its fourth edition by Oxford University Press.