Comrades 2024 Full Field Stats

This is part of a tetralogy of articles providing an in-depth statistical analysis of Comrades 2024. The articles on Elite Men, Elite Women and Start Line Stats are already available.

From the Cradle to the Grave

The graph below is a hurricane funnel answering the often-asked question, “What happens to all the entries?”, plotting the fate of the 24,094 Comrades 2024 entries. There was a 21.6% attrition rate to get to the start line which is very similar to the most recent Up runs in 2017 (20.8%) and 2019 (22.4%). However, almost 94% of starters crossed the finish line (although 350 of these did so over 12 hours).

The three percentages are based on total entries, starters and finishers respectively (e.g. 3.6% of entries finish under 7h30, 4.5% of starters and 4.9% of medallists). There is more detailed analysis on the medal breakdowns as well as overall finish success rates comparisons later in this article.

Below is the same graph filtered on men, women and novices.

Start Times

Just over 1600 runners cross the finish line in the first 30 seconds. This flow steadily drops every 30 seconds to just over 800 by 7 minutes. By 9 minutes everyone has begun their journey to Pietermaritzburg except for a few late starters.

The heat map shows the most common start time for each batch. A is clear within 30 seconds whilst most of H takes longer than 8 minutes. The table shows that there are a small number of “Suppositories” – a kind of cheat that pushes through from behind into places they don’t belong.

Glad to see there are a much smaller number of suppositories than in previous years and upon investigation there were some extenuating circumstances for most who ‘jumped’ batches.

READ MORE: Defective Humans (Uncovering cheats at Comrades)

The H batch runner who started in 23 seconds was identified as a Russian comrade. Here’s an eyewitness report, “He snuck into either A or B (ignoring the number checker security personnel) not sure if it’s a language barrier as he’s a foreign runner, but even if it was he didn’t hesitate at all in marching into A/B area.” However, there are sometimes mitigating circumstances. In this case it appears there was an issue with the number he was issued as he qualified with a 3:03 marathon and therefore should have been in B.

The line graph provides a good visual representation of the start time distribution by batch. It also shows that, whilst there is a definite peak for each batch, there is also a lot of cross pollination amongst the batches. Perhaps a rethink of the “dropping the gates at 5:15am” method is needed?

The final graph shows average start time by batch. As one would expect the average increases as one moves up the alphabet from 15 seconds in A to 7:17 in H. The supporting table provides a male, female and novice split. Perhaps surprisingly, the ladies are quickest off the mark. However, novices make the most of the start line atmosphere and, from C onwards, all have average start times much slower than the rest of the field.

Medals by Batch

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the medals earned by batch including segmentation on male, female and novice runners.

About 93% of A seeds are done under 9 hours. On the other extreme, less than 7% of H batch finish under 11 hours. With the exception of A batch, DNF attrition increases gradually by batch and then has a major jump at G and again at H.

The table below provides a heat map showing what medal most of each batch achieves. More detailed analysis is provided in the tables above which include the number of runners as well as the percentage by medal, the fastest male and female time as well as the average time.

Of note:

• 8.5% of B batch achieve a Silver medal
• 9 Silvers are achieved from C and 2 from D
• Zero A batch ladies finish after 9 hours and just one B batch lady finishes over 10 hours
• Every single batch achieves a Bill Rowan medal
• E has the second highest DNF (18%)
• The DNF rate is much lower than in 2019, for G and H it is about 50% reduced. This is likely the result of the shorter distance and better in-race cutoffs (about 500 people benefitted from the extra 10 minutes at the last two cutoffs).

Beat your Batch

Are you ‘better than the average Comrades runner’? Here’s the average finish time per batch along with segmentation for male, female and novices.

No surprises that the average time increases as one moves up the alphabet. More evidence that ego and testosterone are a handicap when running ultra marathons is that the average female time per batch is far super superior to the average male time for every ‘time seeded’ batch except H (see https://runningmann.co.za/2023/05/11/run-like-a-girl-pacing-at-comrades/ for a detailed article). Novices fare worst of all and their average times are far slower than their more experienced peers.

READ MORE: Run Like a Girl (A Guide to Optimal Pacing at the Comrades Marathon)

Men Still the Weaker Sex

After the 2022 Comrades I wrote an article advising Comrades entrants to ‘Run Like a Girl’ – nothing has changed in 2024.

Men run a faster average pace for all of the first three splits across all 9 seeding batches and ‘win’ 29 of the 36 first half splits. This first half male domination is exactly the same result as for the 2022 Down run when I last ran this stat.

However, Comrades is a race of two halves and women win 35 of the 36 second half splits. It’s only the CC charity batch men who restore a small sliver of dignity to those hindered with an x chromosome with a consolation goal between Umlaas Road and Mkondeni. We’ll take whatever we can get – in 2022, it was a clean sweep over the second half for the ladies!

Despite qualifying faster in every batch except E, women come out with a faster average finish time across 7 of the 9 batches. Based on qualification time, the average A batch man should finish about 13 minutes ahead of the average A batch women but the ladies have had a chance to shower and reapply their make-up before their male counterparts cross the finish line. However, it’s the B batch men who take the biggest bashing, finishing on average over 22 minutes behind their female contemporaries.

Testosterone and ego are a clear handicap when it comes to ultra marathon running.

Bailers: Where your Comrades fell in 2024

Anyone can get to the halfway mark of Comrades and anyone can get from the top of Pollies to the finish. Comrades provides a great illustration of just how important our minds are when completing really arduous tasks. Another way of phrasing this is that, it’s not how you start and it’s not how you finish, but rather it’s how you deal with the middle that will determine success.

If you’ve done the training, anyone can get to the halfway mark of Comrades. In fact, less than 80 of the almost 20000 starters drop out before the halfway mark. Almost everyone who gets to the last cutoff with about 10km to go manages to finish (although 350 do so after the 12 hour cutoff). It’s the doldrums after halfway that account for over 50% of the non-finishers at Comrades. This is where your body starts to hurt and your mind starts to play games with you. You’ve still got more than a marathon to go and the risk of attrition is greatest because it’s no longer about the legs but more about the head.

As for the impact of the extra 10 minutes at Mkondeni. That benefited 117 Comrades runners (including 7 international runners). Based on the in depth analysis I’ve done on all the cutoffs, the more lenient (or sensible) in-race cutoff times that Race Manager Ann Ashworth was able to push through (against resistance from the ‘old guard’) looks to have resulted in about 500 additional Comrades runners earning their medals and the highest finish rate for an Up run with the 12 hour cutoff. One hates to think about how many runners have been denied a medal over the years because of narrowminded bureaucrats trusting their unfounded opinions rather than using the data.

READ MORE: Comrades 2024 Cutoffs: A lesson in gun control

The graph from Wits Statistician (and Green Number 4670) Mark Dowdeswell provides a clear illustration of how your probability of finishing reduces rapidly over 2 minute increments. No one who made the cutoff in the last 2 minutes was able to finish under 12 hours which is exactly how a cutoff should work. If anyone is able to go through in the final seconds and earn a medal it means your cutoff was too tight.

Cutoff Beneficiaries (H is for Hero)

The beneficiaries of the more lenient / sensible cutoff times are indicated in the Kermit lime green highlight. Just 13 people benefitted in the first half but the impact on the second half was massive with almost 473 at Cato Ridge and 117 at Mkondeni. In total there were 487 runners who would not have received a medal had former Race Manager Ann Ashworth not pushed the cutoff changes through despite resistance from a reactionary Board member.

Of note is that 87 of the 117 Mkondeni beneficiaries come from G and H batch and just 1 was from B and 1 from C. I was told that the change “would only benefit Bill Rowan medallists having a bad day” but this is clearly not true. I was also emphatically and confidently told that it’s impossible for back of the pack runners to increase their pace at the tail end of Comrades. The data says otherwise – 52.5% of H batch runners run the last split to the finish line as their fastest of the day. Many are able to run over a minute per kilometre faster than their second fastest split. H really is for Hero.

Finisher Summaries (Age, Medal & Gender)

The average age of this year’s Comrades finishers was 44.5 (43.2 for women and 44.8 for men).

The 40-49 veterans category comprised 45% of the finishers and just 4% are over 60 years old. Of concern is that just 31% of the field are in 20-39 open category. Unfortunately, recent developments seem to indicate that many on former Board are resistant to change and innovation that will attract a younger demographic to the event (but fortunately a much better and forward-looking Board was voted in at the November 2024 AGM).

It may surprise some that only 34% on the field finishes in the last hour (many people quote “50%”). However, 60% finish in the last 2 hours. There is a big difference in the medal distribution for men and women. One in four men finish Bill Rowan or better whereas only one in ten women manage the same feat. Three in four female starters will finish in the last 2 hours compared to just over 50% of men. It’s also interesting that a similar percentage of men earn a Bill Rowan and Robert Mtshali medal.

The remaining doughnut graphs provide a breakdown and medals earned by age and gender. As one would expect, the medals earned percentage is heavily correlated to age with older entrants taking longer to claim their laurels.

The table provides a detailed summary of all information within the graphs.

Is the Comrades Up run really that much tougher?

Conventional wisdom says that the Down run is harder on your body but the Up run is harder on the day. Here’s the stats to prove it…

The graph tracks the cumulative % of finishers in 15 minute splits for the 2023 and 2024 Comrades. The green 2023 Down run line is above the yellow 2024 Up run line highlighting that 2023 finishers were significantly faster than those of 2024.

The gap starts gradually before widening to over 1% at the Silver cutoff. It steadily increases to hit a maximum variance of 6.2% at the Bronze cutoff and the difference is made up in the last 15 minute scramble.

I did wonder whether the illogical cutoffs in 2023 would impact the results so I modelled this by adding 500 finishers in the last 15 minutes which does narrow the gap slightly (indicated by the dotted green line) but the Down is still a much ‘easier’ race.

Above is another view showing absolute % at each 15 minute split also highlighting Down is faster. Each peak is a medal cutoff and the flaccid Green droop at the end is the result of the illogical 2023 cutoffs.

The Comrades finish line is Goal not a Journey

The graph below shows how many runners crossed the finish line every 15 minutes. Humans are goal (or medal) driven and it’s the normal Christmas tree, pagoda pattern for each medal cut-off with a ‘love handle’ on the last 15 minutes for each medal. In behavioural science this is known as the “goal gradient effect” where people tend to work harder and faster as they get closer to a specific goal or target.

The only exception is at the 8 hour mark where there is a slight bulge. This provides a good indication of the psychology of the human mind when it comes to arbitrary time milestones. There have been several studies showing that many more marathon runners finish just under 4 hours than just over 4 hours.

Breakdowns by gender and novices follow the same trends. The doughnut graphs are the same data set in a format that provides a different visual of the percentages by 15 minutes split.

The final view of the finisher numbers by 15-minute splits provides a timeline comparison.

Of interest:

• 34.1% finish over the last hour (38.9% in 2019) and just under half the field (44.2%) over the last 75 mins (48.3% in 2019).
• 4.9% finish under 7h30 (which is significantly higher than in previous years, 3.6% in 2019, the shorter distance seems to make a big difference for medals).
• If you got Bill Rowan (sub-9) or better you’re in the top 21.1% (18% in 2019).

A Tale of Three Up Runs

Comrades 2017 and 2019 were about the same distance but the sub-10 hour Robert Mtshali was introduced in 2019. 2024 also has the Mtshali medal but was about 1km shorter. Weather was comparable across all 3 runs. How does this effect finish times?

You can see the impact of the Mtshali medal with the 2017 / 2019 comparison showing a positive deviation at the 10 hour mark which is cancelled out at 11 hours. However, it seems that the shorter 2024 distance has a surprisingly big difference in cumulative finish times. At 9 hours the class of 2024 is 3.1% faster than 2019 and 4.1% than 2017. This increases to 5% and 7% respectively at 10 hours.

The second graph provides the same data as absolute numbers. You can see the medal spikes in this representation. Also note the blue 2017 line at 11 hours before the Mtshali medal. Without a 10 hour medal, lazy ultra runners like myself looked forward to a nice long walk up Polly Shortts. I had never run one step up Pollies before 2019 but that year, with a ‘touch and go’ Robert Mtshali medal on offer, I ran the whole damn thing.

I would also argue that the Mthsali medal has increased the proportion of Bill Rowan medallists. Many runners train harder to the 10 hour medal and then improve enough to do a double-upgrade from Bronze to Bill Rowan.

Negative Splits (& Pace)

All coaches promote negative splits at Comrades but how many athletes can execute it? The answer is just under 14% of the medallists (finishers) and 12.6% of the starters.

As expected females fare much better than their male counterparts (28.6% vs 10.3%). The negative split percentage increases as one goes up the seeding batches with an impressive 40.3% of H batch ladies achieving a negative split.

Segmenting by medal earned, one sees that slower medals generally have a higher negative split count. The one notable exception is the male Golds where all 10 achieve a negative split (this is the first time I’ve seen this since doing the stats – usually it is just positions 1 and 2).

When segmenting by age, it’s the youngsters who achieve the best negative split rate whilst it is fairly constant for other age categories.

The distance from the timing mat at Drummond in 2024 meant that the second ‘half’ was 710m longer. This results in the comparative negative pace figures being significantly higher than for time. One in five finishers ran a faster pace from Drummond to the finish.

I did not run this full metric in 2019 so cannot do a proper comparison but the finisher negative pace percentage of 11.75% in 2024 is substantially higher than the 7.11% recorded at the 2023 Down run.

Biggest Negative & Positive Splits

The Hollands bookend the list of biggest negative splits. It is sadly ironic that in the year that sees the first Dutch man winning the Comrades is also the first time in 50 years that Barry Holland fails to finish.

Barry’s son Ross is the only runner to achieve a negative split of over one hour and his wife Debbie a more modest but still equally impressive 29m33. One of Barry’s two daughters, Kathryn van Dongen, secures 10^th place on the list. Also of interest is that the 2nd. 6th. 7th & 38th best negative splits all went to Dolphin Coast Striders who were part of the Holland pod before Barry “sent them on their way to get their medals at Alverston”.

The best negative split for a Bill Rowan was Bongukwanda Dlamini from Sizalanga AC (36m28) and for Robert Mtshali was Jonathon Jedeikin from West Coast AC (45m09). No silvers or better on the Top 50 list. The biggest split from silver was earned by Lindt de la Port and is a story in itself which you can read here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AqCqTiG1A/

On the other side of the table there is the positive split list. In my opinion, these are the true heroes of Comrades. To hang in there when it’s not your day and lesser men and women would have called it quits is what Comrades is all about. I am sure that there are some great stories from people on this list – if you have one to share please let me know!

Split Happens

Here are the biggest negative and positive splits by medal, batch and age group. As stated above, both sides of the table deserve plaudits – and those on the positive table are more likely to have an interesting story to tell (and I’m all ears if anyone is sharing!).

It’s nice to see many familiar names on the lists, here are a few cherry picked observations:

• Caitriona Jennings scores the biggest negative split for the women’s Gold. Gerda Steyn ‘only’ did a 1m10 negative split, perhaps she was saving her legs over the second half for the Paris Olympics?
• Someone else who went to the Olympics is Claus Kempen, biggest negative split from A batch. Claus is the the guide for Paralympian athlete Louzanne Coetzee. They participated in the 1500m and marathon distances in Paris.
• Lindt de la Port scored the only negative split in the 2022 down for Silver and under (when the second ‘half’ was 2.2km longer) and does it again in 2024. This is slowest known time through Drummond to score a Silver (Mark Dowdeswell has gone back to 2007 to check). See https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AqCqTiG1A/ for more on Lindt’s incredible achievement.
• I think we need to rename CC the ‘Commentator’s Curse’ with Cuan Walker topping the positive split for men in this batch. Cuan swapped the studio for the streets this year and secured his first finish since 2017. Clearly Cuan savoured his return by maximising the second half experience and, with a surname like his (and picking up an injury), you can’t fault him for walking the last 16km.
• In the 70+ ladies, Stella AC’s battleaxe Pat Fisher uses all her experience for a 34^th finish. This would have equalled the women’s record for most Comrades finishes but Kleintjie van Schalkwyk came back for her first finish since 2018 and set a new record of 35 finishes. This is going to be an interesting battle over the next few years.

Know Your Split

This is the first time I’ve done stats on the fastest and slowest splits and the results are fascinating.

Over half of the field (54.2%) run the second split from 5.5km to Pinetown the fastest. Combine this with the 8.4% who run the first 5.5km as their fastest and there is a clear indication that most people get their pacing wrong.

However, a third of the field (33.8%) run the final split from Mkondeni to Scottsville as their fastest. Most notable are H batch, with 52.5% of these heroes recording this as their fastest split. F and G are also above 40% for the final split being their fastest. Hardly anyone records their fastest split from splits 3 to 7 where 4 of the big 5 hills reside. Tellingly, not one person runs Umlaas Road to Mkondeni (which climaxes in Polly Shortts) as their fastest split. For future reference, anyone wanting to get onto my stats list can set this as a challenge.

Perhaps the most interesting analysis is how different the male and female tables are. Almost 68% of men run the first or second split the fastest and just 28.7% speed home over the final split. The majority of female runners, 55.2%, run the final split as their fastest whilst 41.2% record the first or second split as their best.

The slowest splits provide more uniform results. Polly Shortts does not discriminate on gender and 80% of the field (80.2% of men and 78.7% of women) record the climb to Mkondeni as their slowest of the day.

The main difference between gender here is that 15.6% of women run one of the first half splits the slowest compared to 8.9% of men. Also of interest is that just two people run the 5.5km to Pinetown split as their slowest.

Best Age to Run Comrades?

The best time to run the Comrades Up run is in your early 30s. The 31-35 year old cohort has both the best finish rate and fastest average time. After that it’s an “uphill” battle!

Anyone below 50 years old beats the “full field” finish rate but you need to be under 45 to beat the overall average finish time.  There’s a big deterioration in both finish time and success from 65. More than 1 in 4 in the 66-69 group fails to finish and this jumps to over 1 in 3 for the 70+ group.

A more detailed age by year view of the same data is in the next graph. The best ages by finish rate are 23, 29 and 31 (in that order) and for time 32, 34 and 33.  The number prefixing the average finish time is the finishers for that age. Other than the very old and very young at the fringes, the numbers for each age are large enough to be statistically relevant.

The other bar graphs provide a simpler finish rate view by age groupings and individual ages. The table provides a summary of the source information as well as time and success rates by gender.

Should you Stick with a Green Number?

Conventional wisdom has it that if you want to succeed at Comrades you should stick with a Green Number runner on race day. Does the data agree?

When it comes to colour coded rules to live by in winter you should never eat the yellow snow – and it looks like you shouldn’t blindly follow a Green Number at Comrades either.

The overall success rate of the Comrades class of 2024 was 91.6% and the only cohort that significantly beats this figure are your less experienced Comrades with 1 to 8 finishes and a success rate of almost 93%.

Those with 10 to 18 finishes are over 2% below the grade average which is the same result that novices achieve. The 20 to 28ers fare very slightly better. By far the lowest success rate is for the Triple Greens with a 20% failure rate. However, this is to be expected as age has a significant impact on finish rate (see yesterday’s stats post).

As for the hypothesis that milestone runners (those going for Green, Double Green, etc.) would fare better than this rest of the field, this proves very slightly true. Milestone runners have a success rate of 91.9% which is 0.3% higher than the full field.

The single best performing medal group is those celebrating their 21^st run with a 95.7% pass mark followed by those on their 7^th run (94.8%).

The worst performing group with a sample size of 100 or more runners are those doing their ‘Green Number run’. I have always contended that the ‘one in your Green Number’ rule only applies to fools and locals. The failure rate of 13.5% adds one more solid logic slot to my rationale.

The table provides a summary of the source information as well as time and success rates by gender. Note: Previous finishes were missing for a small number of the field and have been ignored in this analysis.

Fastest by Age

Silvers for under 25s are very rare (no women achieve this in 2024) but 23yo Victor Mahlobo from City of Mbombela Marathon Club goes one better with a Wally Hayward. The youngest silver for women is 26yo Carla Ashleigh Johnson from ATC Running. Jenet Mbhele from Xcel Running Club and men’s winner Piet Wiersma are the only Gold medallists under 30.

Australian import, Wayne Spies, is the only over 50 to finish under 6 hours and earn a Wally Hayward. There are very few Masters who have achieved this feat and this is only the second time on the Up run. Spies has the fastest ever 50+ time of 5:42:01 at last year’s Down. Vladimir Kotov achieved this three times (2008, 2010 and 2012) and Swiss runner Peter Camenzind finished 20 seconds under 6 hours in 2005 before you could earn a Wally. Camenzind returned to our shores for his 13^th run this year and was the fastest 72yo.

There were just two Silvers for over 60 men this year. They were both in the 62yo category with Boksburg AC’s David Gamede taking line honours from Shaun Meiklejohn (who now has an incredible 32 Comrades finishes under 7h30). The oldest female category winner for Silver is Ubora’s Daniella Morrison-Jones at 45 but 48yo Helena Joubert from Pan African Resources defies the aging process with a 6:47:00 Isavel Roche-Kelly.

There were just 5 men over 75 who started and 3 of them finished, Johannes Marosi Mosehla being by far the outlier at 82. On the women’s table, 5 of the 6 over 70 starters finished with the 72yo category being the most hotly contested (American Suzanne Koonce taking the honours).

One final shout out to the now ever-Triple Green Val Watson from Run Zone AC who was the fastest 68yo female with her 30^th consecutive run. Before 2024, only Marinda Ludick had 30 consecutive finishes for females but Sharon Bosch from Old Selbornians also completed her 30^th in a row with her 31^st finish this year.

Comrades 2024 vs 2023 vs 2019

The first graph shows how many repeat runners beat or lost to their 2019 and 2023 finish times in 2024. It’s surprisingly even for the +/- 7,000 that ran the previous Up run in 2019 and started again in 2024. However, most of the over 11,000 2023/2024 returnees have a slower finish time this year. This is another indication that the Up run is tougher on the day (timewise) for the majority of the field.

The second graph plots the time difference of every 2019 and 2023 repeat runner by 15 minute splits. As one would expect, most people finish relatively close to their 2019 and 2023 times. The one anomaly is some spectacular improvements between 2019 and 2024 (note the blue columns are taller than the purple on the left hand side of the graph). Some runners clearly had unfinished business with the Comrades Up run and won their post-Covid rematch.

And just for fun, here are the same graphs with the time ‘normalised’ to the same distance.

Biggest Improvements and Deteriorations (2024 vs 2023/2019)

Here’s your list of the biggest improvements and deteriorations between 2024 and 2023 / 2019 finish times. A special shout out to #10 on the 2023 vs 2024 improvements, Nazeer Cassimjee from Save Orion AC. Nazeer was #1 in the biggest deteriorations in 2023 and seems to orbit the Comrades finish line like Hayley’s comet. After earning a silver in 2022, he flew off into deep space in 2023 taking 3 hours longer for a finish line sighting. However, the planets aligned for him again in 2024 with a 2h50 improvement. It will be interesting to see what this celestial body brings to Comrades 2025.

There are also tables highlighting the biggest improvement and deterioration by gender by medal. If you spot a friend on the biggest improvement list let them know. If you spot a friend on the biggest deterioration list, let all their friends know (that’s the way it works as I understand it).

The final table highlights the Mr and Ms Consistencies out there – those runners who finished in the same (or close to the same) time in 2024.

Most Silvers by Club

There were just 856 people who finished under 7h30 minutes. The table below shows the clubs with the most silverware (note: the numbers include all finishers under 7h30 not just Silver medals). There is a steep drop off between #1 (Hollywood with 116) and #2 (Waterfall City with 21). Other non-professional clubs in the top 10 are Faku Chiefs, Runzone and Xcel.

As one would expect, the professional clubs have the best success rate with percentage of starters finishing under 7h30 (minimum criterion 10 starters). Nedbank International runners make the most of their carbon footprint with 13 out of 14 (Russian Nikolay Volkov ruining the perfect report card).

The tables below show the clubs with the highest percentage of sub 7h30 finishers using the criterion of a minimum of 10 and 40 starters.

Best Club Performance at Comrades – All Ways lead to Fourways

The best finisher rate by club at Comrades is pretty much like the Best Picture Award at the Oscars. And this year the winner goes to… the mighty Fourways Road Runners with a 98.7% success rate!

Best Foreign Picture goes to Gabarone Striders (who says you need hills in your hometown to be successful at Comrades) in second place with 98.6%. Jeppe, Pirates and Fat Cats are the only clubs with more than 100 starters to make the top 20.

I used the criterion of 50 or more starters above but dropping it to 20 starters, there are 21 clubs who had a 100% success rate at Comrades 2024. Sunninghill Striders and Cape Multisport Club had the most starters (42) on this list.

Looking at the clubs who had the highest proportion of their qualified entrants actually starting the race, the KZN chapter of the Chillie Running Club come out just ahead of Runners of Hope and City of Mbombela Marathon Club (who have the distinction of being the only club on both the top 10 starter and finisher tables).

Country Performance

Namibia, Russia and Switzerland earn a perfect report card with 100% of their starters finishing the race. It looks like high altitude training is overrated with the mountain kingdom of Lesotho having the lowest finish rate for countries with 20 or more starters. USA is the only other country below 90%.

Malawi is the only country with a perfect start rate for all their qualified runners. India, in 4^th with a 7.1% dropoff, are the best of the overseas countries. USA are at the foot of this table as well with one in four of their athletes failing to make it to the start line. Perhaps someone needs to focus on making American ultra running great again?

Grouping by continental region, the Australasians show the greatest conviction (pun intended) with a 97.6% finish rate whilst South Americans are the most likely to arrive on the start line with just a 7.1% dropoff in qualified runners.

The very low international (especially overseas) numbers show just how parochial Comrades is. I would see this a major opportunity for expansion but it will need a big change in thinking (and probably fresh blood) within the Comrades Board (which thankfully has come with the November 2024 AGM). Things seemed to be heading in the right direction with all the fresh ideas Ann Ashworth brought to the table in 2024 but her reward was an unceremonious firing. Despite being the oldest and by far largest ultra marathon on the planet, the Comrades media coverage (especially online and social media) is way behind that of big name international trail ultras.

Comrades 2024 versus Historic Finish Rates

A finish rate above 90% (calculated as the number of runners crossing the start mat divided by the number of legitimate finishers) is very rare on the Up run. In fact, it’s happened just once for an Up run with a 12 hour finish (90.8% in 2006). Therefore, the 2024 success rate of 91.6% is the best ever for a 12 hour Up run and the more sensible in-race cutoffs are a major contributor to that.

I’ve provided two additional success rate graphs for comparison: (1) all runs since 2000 and (2) all runs since 1950. Of note is the period in the late 1970s to mid-1980s which consistently had the best finish rates of all time.

For those wondering about the anomaly in 2013, that was the year with the extreme heat and wind.

The participation trends graph shows a detailed breakdown of entries, starters, finishers and male / female data from 2000 to date.

The final graph provides a great illustration of how the Comrades started its meteoric rise in the 1960s and continued to scale to become by far the largest ultra marathon in the world. There is only one other ultra marathon that’s achieved more than 10,000 finishers (Two Oceans) and there is no ultra marathon in any other country with more than 2,000 finishers (in fact there are very few that get close to 1,000).

Getting Provincial

Gauteng has more than twice the number of finishers than every other province and, together with KwaZulu Natal, comprise over 61% of the field. The Western Cape is in third with 9.2%. I’ve seen a perception that runners in the Cape don’t travel for Comrades but I would suspect that this is a higher percentage than the number of KZN license plates at Two Oceans.

Eastern Cape runners claim bragging rights at this year’s Comrades Marathon with a 93.1% success rate. Second is Western Cape (92.3%) and third Gauteng (91.4%).

It was a tight fight for the wooden spoon award with those in the north earning a three-way dead heat at 90% – North West, Northern Province and South Africa’s northernmost province putting the ‘limp’ into Limpopo.

The next graph shows the journey off all provinces and internationals from entries to finishers. Here the Eastern Cape also comes out on top in every category.

Predicted versus Actual Finish Time

Using an athlete’s qualification to predict finish time plots a nice bell graph. The traditional method for mortal runners is to take the marathon time and multiply by 2.5 whilst for elites is to double the qualification time and add one hour. The data shows that there are a lot more mortals than elites.

Just over a third of the field manages to run faster than their predicted time using the *2.5 method but, notably, almost half of the female finishers achieve this. Very few people, just 415 (2.4%), can beat the elite predictor.

Note: If an athlete qualified with an ultra, I’ve used an algorithm to adjust this to a marathon time with a ‘time discount’ for the extra distance. However, no adjustment is made for difficulty of qualifier route.

I’ve included a table of the Top 50 athletes to beat their predicted time by the largest amount. The table is topped by two Russians, one who used a tough trail race and the other who used his 100km split from a 115km race. The Chatsworth Ultra is by far the most frequent event name on the list whilst a narrow 4h46 qualifier at the Tzaneen Tuffy (a marathon that certainly lives up to its name) is good enough for a Bill Rowan for Cor Van Heyningen.

Shoe Stats

Asics dominates the market share of Comrades finishers with more than 1 in 3 medallists stomping up to Scottsville in their footwear. Adidas and Nike share the spoils for second (16%) whilst New Balance (12%) are the only other double digit brand. Comparing to 2022 shoe data, Asics have maintained their market share whilst Adidas have grown by 5% (mostly at the expense of Nike who’ve dropped 4%).

When it comes to success rate, Puma (94.3%) finishes a whisker ahead of Saucony (94.2%) and 3^rd place goes to Adidas (93.3%). Maxed, which is disproportionately worn by faster runners, is on the bottom which is probably due to the number of A seeds who crash and burn on the climb up to Pietermaritzburg.

Maxed does however have the highest proportion of their runners finishing Silver or better and keep this record for the Bill Rowans as well. Vic Claphams bring New Balance to the force at the back of the pack with almost 40% of their runners coming home in the final hour.

I’ve included a view of shoe worn by medal earned which should be used in conjunction with the overall finisher market share. Nike does disproportionately well up front and Adidas dominates Silver. Asics and New Balance are the preferred shoe brand for those further back in the field.

Here’s a table with all the source information.

This provides a view of the shoes worn by the fastest 100 male and female qualifiers. Nike dominate both genders but a large part of this is because Nedbank Running Club has by far the most athletes in the Top 100 and they are sponsored by Nike. Sponsorships determine most of the shoe choices of men whilst far less of the ladies are sponsored leading to more diversity in their shoe closet.

There is a difference in the gender brand preferences with women wearing proportionally more Brooks, New Balance and Saucony than the men who favour Asics, Nike and Adidas. I wondered whether Gerda Steyn’s Adidas sponsorship impacted the Adidas market share growth but, if that is the case, it’s only working amongst the men.

Looking at the age group comparisons, one sees that younger runners (under 40) run proportionally more in Nike and Adidas whereas Asics dominates in the 50 and over bracket. One anomaly is the 70+ segment which has the highest proportion of Nike – perhaps one needs to be young and have plenty of disposable income or old and have just cashed in a pension fund to afford Vaporflys?

The shoes by batch graph shows the those endowed with the best ultra running DNA run in Nike and Adidas (although how much of this is by choice and how much due to sponsorship is unclear). “A” Batch is also where Maxed have the biggest market share but once again it is not clear whether this is due to sponsorships or because this is the most affordable shoe for talented lower income runners (Maxed shoes feature prominently amongst Wally Hayward Medal winners). It is also notable that Asics and New Balance increase their market share as one goes down the alphabet.

It’s noticeable how Asics are favoured by the more experienced runners whilst Adidas drops drastically as the medal count climbs.

Men’s Fastest & Slowest through each Split by Medal

Here are the lists of male athletes who went through each split the fastest and slowest by eventual medal earned. Unless you are Piet Wiersma, you don’t want to appear on the fastest list over the first half – it’s normally a guarantee of a massive positive split.

With his early break, Aleksei Beresnev dominates the Wally Hayward table until Umlaas Road when Tete Dijana takes over. Also interesting that 7^th placed Elov Olsson was the fastest Gold over the first two splits but the slowest at Drummond, Cato Ridge and Umlaas Road. He clearly followed his own very effective race strategy.

For me the most interesting table is the slowest through Mkondeni and the paces that athletes run to sneak in for a medal. The last name of the list is always worthy of a special call out – Mthobisi Khumalo from the Financial Service Board AC was able to balance the books with 43 seconds to spare. He ran an average pace of 8:34/km to Mkondeni arriving at the top of Polly Shortts in 11:17:15. From there he ran 6:11/km for his fastest split of the day (his second fastest split was 7:43/km to Pinetown). Khumalo was one of the 117 runners who benefited from the extra 10 minutes at the final cutoff.

Notes:

• The Pos / Neg Split column is from and to Drummond whereas the Pos / Neg Pace is from and to the relevant split.
• Rounding errors (depending on how many decimals I used) can make a difference of +/- 2 seconds on pace.

Women’s Fastest & Slowest through each Split by Medal

Here are the lists of female athletes who went through each split the fastest and slowest by eventual medal earned. Unless you are Gerda Steyn, you don’t want to appear on the fastest list over the first half – it’s normally a guarantee of a big positive split. In fact, Steyn is the only athlete on the ‘fastest’ lists who manages a negative split.

You will notice the stark difference on the ‘slowest’ tables where almost everyone here scores a negative split.

For me the most interesting table is the slowest through Mkondeni and the paces that athletes run to sneak in for a medal. Except for Gold, every athlete on here runs their fastest split of the day to achieve their goal medal.

Here’s some examples of inspirational final splits:

• Taryn McAllister from RAC 4:52 for 8:58:39 (second best split 5:59)
• Mantombu Methebula from Bellas AC 5:18 for 9:59:40 (second best split 6:27)
• Heyley Fellies from Gugulethu AC 6:00 for 10:59:32 (second best split 7:03)
• Beatrice Letsunyane from CSIR AC 6:31 for 11:59:03 (second best split 7:41)

Notes:

• The Pos / Neg Split column is from and to Drummond whereas the Pos / Neg Pace is from and to the relevant split.
• Rounding errors (depending on how many decimals I used) can make a difference of +/- 2 seconds on pace.

Fastest & Slowest per Split by Medal Earned

This is similar to the above section with the difference that this looks at each split in isolation whereas the previous stats looked at fastest / slowest cumulative running time to that point. As with the “through splits” analysis, it’s generally better to be on the slowest list before Drummond and the fastest list after Drummond.

You will also see the trend that those running slowest first half splits and fast second half splits have a much higher probability of running a negative split.

Additional Stats

If time permits, I will do more detailed stats on qualifier marathons and Comrades results. If you would like a stat that does not appear in my articles or have an interesting idea, feel free to message me on social media or therunningmann@gmail.com.

Due to FMEs* after the 2023 Cutoff Debacle , I only received the 2023 results extract very late. I plan to do a similar article to this one before Comrades 2025 so that this year’s Comrades class has some reference material before June.

* Fragile Male Egos

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