Humorous Anecdotes, Observations & Accounts of Marathon Running & Agile Adventures.
This article provides detailed information on all South Africa’s January 2025 marathons including race descriptions and recommendations. You can find the full 2025 marathon / ultra calendar here.
A summary of your choices is below:
When someone introduces you to a friend or acquaintance with the caveat, “They’re from the Bluff”, this is a warning. It’s the equivalent of cautioning a friendly stranger that, “My dog bites!”
When you tell someone that you are running the Bluff Marathon, they recoil and give you a similar cautionary look – and whatever statement follows indicates, “That marathon bites!”
With 275 marathons under my belt, I decided it was finally time to see whether I could bite off more than I could chew at the Bluff Marathon – or whether this brutal route would chew me up and spit me out (or, as this is a double-lap course, I guess you could call that a case of “once bitten, twice shy”).
I had been told a lot about the Bluff. Some descriptions fail to live up to expectations. However, it took just a two-second scan of the Fynnlands Sports Club bar (which was also the registration venue and doubles as the Bluff AC clubhouse) to realise that the “Rough and tough and from Bluff” mantra was not propaganda. In fact, if anything the slogan is underhyped. Wearing baggies and a T-shirt, I was probably the most overdressed male at the venue (and by far the least tattooed). You’ll have to take my word for it as I was not about to take an unsolicited photograph and risk someone taking offence.
Earlier this year, the Two Oceans Marathon (TOM) issued a media release, “New Chair and Vice Chair to head up TOM NPC as appointment of board is finalised”. Shortly afterwards I received a tip off from a credible source who prefers to remain anonymous that the announcement contained several inaccuracies on the qualifications and running pedigree of new Chairperson Toni Cavanagh.
Continue reading “Lies, Damn Lies & Two Oceans Press Releases (Has the Chair embellished her running and professional CV?)”
The tables below show the all-time women’s Comrades Up run pace and time charts. I place more emphasis on pace (especially as we had the shortest ever Comrades distance this year).
34-year-old Gerda Steyn replaces 29-year-old Gerda Steyn at the top of the table. Just how much better is Gerda than any other female on the Up run? An incredible 10.42 seconds per kilometre!
Continue reading “Comrades 2024: Women’s Elite Stats”
The tables below show the all-time Comrades Up run pace and time charts. I place more emphasis on pace (especially as we had the shortest ever Comrades distance this year).
Piet Wiersma and Dan Moselakwe both crack the Top 10 whilst Degefa Lafebo secures 15th. Joseph Manyedi and Andrew Davies also make it into the Top 30. Whilst 2024 sees the most finishers (5) in the Top 30, I’d still make a case for the 2000 being the most competitive men’s Up run of all time followed by 1998.
Continue reading “Comrades 2024: Men’s Elite Stats”
The 2024 Comrades Marathon Association (CMA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) got off to a slow start. The meeting was due to start at 10:00 and at 10:04 interim CMA Chair Jeff Minnaar got proceedings underway. After giving some special welcomes, he thanked CMA members for sacrificing their Black Friday weekend shopping excursions and promised they’d be able to get their discounted shopping fix around 12 noon. This seemed like an unlikely and overly optimistic estimate – and we had not even got to the first motion on the agenda by 12:30. Any doubts as to the validity of Minnaar’s estimation were further exacerbated with the announcement that the AGM would be delayed “for at least 15 minutes as there is a major traffic jam in Pietermaritzburg.”
