The Running Mann

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’).

20th April 202520th April 2025

Two Oceans goes the legal route (Cavanagh’s last stand)

Doing what I do and writing what I write about, I receive sporadic legal letters. Fortunately, I have a fantastic attorney in Mark Leathers who dispatches the attempted ‘shake downs’ with the disdain that they deserve.

I connected with Mark during the Comrades crisis following the 2024 event when he offered his services to me on a pro bono basis in the fight against the attempted capture of the Comrades Marathon. He was elected to the CMA Board at the November 2024 AGM and his fellow Board members subsequently elected him their Vice Chairperson. Having Mark in my corner lets me sleep peacefully at night.

19th April 202519th April 2025

Is Two Oceans soft on Cheating?

A runner from Old Edwardian Athletics Club who would prefer to remain anonymous sent me an email with detailed and irrefutable proof showing that a serial offender, Anthony Naguriah, had cheated in previous Two Oceans ultra marathons and would be running (and presumably cheating) again in 2025. The same runner has also been publicly exposed as cheating in qualifier marathons and at Comrades. Naguriah’s modus operandi is to start slow, disappear off the grid for a large portion of the race (missing several timing mats) and then popping up towards the finish again*.

* And true to form, at this year’s Two Oceans Naguriah was recorded on the first two mats (up to 14km) running at 7:11/km pace, he then disappears of the grid for the next five timing mats and reappears on the UCT fields for a 6:37:56 ‘finish’.

19th April 202521st April 2025

Instagram Influencer caught cheating at Two Oceans

I received a tipoff about an Instagram influencer who cheated her way into the A batch at the Two Oceans half marathon. The source, who prefers to remain anonymous, said, “I find this behaviour so entitled and exasperating in races nowadays and feel it’s part of a broader discussion on influencers in running, taking up spaces they haven’t legitimately earned in sweat and tears.”

The Insta influencer in question is Kelly van der Walt who uses the handle @thehealthyprocess and has a following of just under 30,000. She has achieved a large following documenting her weight loss journey and is a Institute for Integrative Nutrition Multidimensional Health Coach which “refers to a holistic approach to health and wellness that considers various aspects of a person’s life, not just physical health, but also emotional, mental, spiritual, and social well-being.”

17th April 202517th April 2025

Two Oceans 2025: Questions for the Board

Below are the comprehensive set of questions that I sent to the Two Oceans Board. The Chair gave the organisation a self-scored mark of 95% (noting that there were “5% of things we could have done better”). I think that this set of questions provides a better examination of the Board’s performance in 2025. Any independent invigilators out there willing to give them a passing grade?

Good morning Two Oceans Board members,

I think you would struggle to find an experienced Two Oceans runner who disagreed with the sentiment that 2025 was the worst organised event in the race’s history. I have been involved in 25 Two Oceans (20 as a runner and 5 as a volunteer) and it was definitely by far the worst I have experienced.

Below is a list of questions based on issues I personally experienced and those raised by fellow runners.

For ease of use, I have categorised them for you.