TOM 2025 Reader Letters: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

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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. 

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TOM 2025 Reader Letters: The Kindness of Strangers

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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.

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

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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.
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TOM 2025 Stories: A Medal of Honour

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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.

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TOM 2025 Reader Letters: Casualties of Overcrowding

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

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

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The Comrades 2025 Cutoffs are Perfect

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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’).

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