Tag: race review

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Makoro Village Marathon (A Lekgowa Special)

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[Marathon #279 / Unique Marathon #171 / 22 March 2025]

As long as Limpopo continues to pump out the marathons, I’ll continue to keep heading north. Since it appeared on the running calendar in 2023, the Makoro Village Marathon has been on my radar and this year Julian and I travelled to Polokwane for the third running of the event.

Social running G.O.A.T. adds one more marathon to his collection.

The marathon is themed around Limpopo village lifestyle fusing traditional food, drinks and dance into the event and we were told to expect plenty of support from the local schoolkids who would be entertaining runners at various points along the route. The race is organised by Polokwane Athletic Club but is very different from the other races in their portfolio, all of which are ‘urban’ and centred around the city. This one is about an hour’s drive outside Polokwane City and provides an excellent opportunity to do some feral marathon running.

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

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[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’).

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Mdantsane Marathon (Get in the ring)

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[MARATHON #277 / UNIQUE MARATHON #170 / 7 December 2024]

The whole of South Africa slows down in December and good marathons are hard to find (but a hard marathon is always good to find). Luckily the Eastern Cape provides some festive cheer for the obsessive marathon runner, hosting the only two pre-Christmas options – the 1City Marathon in Gqeberha and the Mdantsane Marathon just outside East London. Unfortunately, this presents a Christmas predicament for the marathon enthusiast as they were both run on the first Saturday in December in 2024. Having run the 1City Marathon in 2023, Julian and I opted to head to Buffalo City and tackle the hills of Mdantsane.

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Bluff Marathon (Ruff and Tuff with zero Fluff)

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[MARATHON #276 / UNIQUE MARATHON #169 / 17 November 2024]

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.

The Fynnlands Sports Club doubles as the Bluff AC clubhouse (they only serve doubles here – Coke mixer strictly optional).
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Complete 2025 South African Road Marathon & Ultra Calendar

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This article contains high level details and, where available, flyers, profiles and route maps for every 2025 South African road marathon and ultra. Updates will be made regularly as races are added, cancelled and confirmed.

The 2025 calendar is brought to you by RaceSpace – the app that has every running and endurance event in the country at your fingertips. RaceSpace are covering some of my marathon running travel costs in 2025 – you can support me and the site by downloading the RaceSpace app on Apple, Android or by using the QR Code below.

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