The Running Mann

14th May 202514th May 2025

TOM 2025 Reader Letters: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I remember my first Two Oceans back in 2002. It was special. It was fantastic. It was brilliantly organised. Sadly a first Two Oceans is no longer what is used to be. Here is Tsholo’s experience of his first Two Oceans.

Good day Stuart,

My name is Tsholo.
I started running in 2014, and since then, I’ve completed Comrades five times and do about 3 – 4 Ultras per year. This year, I took on the Two Oceans Ultra — a race I had long admired — but I left feeling bitterly disappointed by the experience, especially the handling of water stations and half marathon short medals.

12th May 202512th May 2025

TOM 2025 Reader Letters: The Kindness of Strangers

We’ve heard a lot from the runners about the diabolical water situation in the Two Oceans ultra marathon but here’s a different perspective from one of the supporters on the day, Lungi Khambule.

Good day,

I was privileged to support runners at 26km and just before 47km during the Two Oceans Ultra — and what I witnessed left me deeply moved.

At 26km, runners were asking for food, salt, and spray etc. All was relatively good.

But at 47km, the sight was heartbreaking. Runners were desperate for water – pleading at every supporter they saw. Even the supporters adjacent to us were asking us for water, as runners were desperately also asking them for water.

11th May 202511th May 2025

TOM 2025 Reader Letters: Water Woes Ignored in 2024, Worse in 2025

Despite issuing ‘Heatwave’ warnings, Two Oceans failed to provide sufficient water to participants. Both the ultra and half marathons had long stretches of 6km or more with no support tables where runners had to rely on the goodwill of strangers to keep hydrated. In addition, some tables ran out of water and they could not handle the volume of runners. What is very alarming is that these issues have been raised by various participants like Kerryne Krause but have seem to have been completely ignored by the organisers.

The Two Oceans organisers failed to address problems with the 2024 Two Oceans water tables, which were arguably far worse in 2025 . Fortunately the impending ‘heatwave’ warning never materialised. Kerryne tried to contact the organisers on several occasions but was ignored.

10th May 202510th May 2025

TOM 2025 Stories: A Medal of Honour

“Good morning Stuart, I want to give you a lead to consider for a story, but I am not really part of the story.” was the intriguing message I received from Ronnie van der Westhuizen. He did have a story that is both lovely to tell and interesting to read so here it is.

Ronnie is a member of Hangklip Athletic Club in Bettys Bay and the story revolves around clubmate Johan le Roux who had recently moved to the small holiday village after going into early retirement. Health related issues had meant Johan had to leave his post of 21 years as the principal of the Black Rock Primary School in the Northern Cape.

9th May 20259th May 2025

TOM 2025 Reader Letters: Casualties of Overcrowding

Two Oceans severely contravened their permit conditions with the City of Cape Town (CoCT) at this year’s half marathon by taking in almost 21,000 entries when their permit only allowed 17,000. They had previously done the same at the 2019 ultra marathon and relations with CoCT have been strained ever since. The permit limits are there for reasons of safety and violating them raises issues of negligence and incompetence.

What happens when safety rules are flouted? Here’s an example from Belinda Steyn. Steyn, Financial Director of The Christie Group (who manage a large number of Spar and SuperSpar stores across Mpumalanga) was badly injured during the race. A month later and the injury is still seriously impacting her personal and professional life. She is waiting to find out whether she will need to undergo shoulder replacement surgery.

The below letter was sent to Two Oceans over a month ago on 6 April and she has still had no response, once again bringing into question whether the board has taken any accountability for the litany of 2025 issues or are just paying lip service to the runners.

8th May 20259th May 2025

TOM 2025 Reader Letters: Lucky’s luck runs out with half marathon water stations

Seasoned runner ends up in medical tent with dehydration after half marathon

Reports indicate that despite the relatively mild weather, there were still plenty of cases of dehydration at the finish of this year’s Two Oceans half marathon. The temperature at the final cutoff was 23 degrees according to official weather data. However, humidity was higher than normal – and humid conditions are exacerbated in overcrowded environments. Here’s a letter printed as received from a seasoned runner who ended up in the medical tent with dehydration after the half marathon…

8th May 20258th May 2025

The Comrades 2025 Cutoffs are Perfect

These cutoffs are perfect. No one should be using the cutoffs for pacing. If you make an in-race cutoff in the final minute you have 0% chance of earning a medal – I am willing to take any bet that there will be no one who makes an in-race cutoff by 60 seconds or less and earns a medal. In fact, I’ll be surprised if anyone makes an in-race cutoff by 5 minutes or less and earns a medal. That is exactly the way it should be.

2nd May 20256th May 2025

Who’s the Bosch? (Two Oceans’ record breaking matriarch)

Whilst much has been written about the men who’ve run the most Two Oceans and Comrades ultra marathons, very little attention has been given to the women. These record breaking ladies tend to fly under the radar and get the job done without fuss, fanfare or media attention. It seems that it’s not just art but also ultra marathon running that imitates life.

There are just three women who’ve run the Two Oceans Marathon 30 times or more and in 2025 a new record for most female finishes was set and is held jointly by Sharon Bosch and Lucille Damon with 32 completed voyages.

All female runners with 24 or more finishes at the Two Oceans ultra marathon (note: this table excludes those who ran their 24th ultra in 2025).

25th April 20257th May 2025

Bean there, run that (Taylor van Wyk’s first half marathon at Two Oceans)

I am always looking for good stories to tell and recently a gem popped up in an unlikely place: In a recent Two Oceans article about an Instagram influencer who fraudulently tampered with her race number to change her seeding from Q to A, a mom posted about issues with the half marathon seedings but finished off by mentioning that her special needs son had a fantastic run and ‘was probably the most excited runner on the course this year’.

I am privileged to share the story of Taylor ‘Bean’ van Wyk (or should that be ‘spilling the beans’) about his debut half marathon at this year’s Two Oceans.

23rd April 202523rd April 2025

Elands Marathon (there’s no such thing as an easy marathon)

[MARATHON #278 / 2nd Elands Marathon / 1 March 2025]

Most people get injured when they run too much, I seem to get injured when I run too little. I had been taking it easy since the Mdantsane Marathon at the beginning of December with nothing longer than 10km and was just doing enough mileage to keep my beer belly in check. Let’s just say I was in a good equilibrium at the beginning of January when all of a sudden, I felt a pain at the top of my hip during my morning 10k.

Of course my immediate reaction was to try and ‘run it out’. After 5 km of steadily escalating agony, I finally breached my pain threshold and walked home. I was convinced it was a stress fracture but it later turned out to be a very badly strained gluteus medius which had detached from the bone (hence feeling like a stress fracture but with more ‘pull’).