TTOM Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The Running Mann

7th April 20267th April 2026

Two Oceans Revival: Sponsors flock back (an interview with Stillwater CEO Michael Meyer)

After hitting rock bottom in 2025, the Two Oceans Marathon is undergoing a complete renaissance. A great deal of the credit for the revival must go to Stillwater Sports who were chosen as the event’s professional staging partner. However, perhaps their most impressive achievement to date has gone largely unnoticed – landing a dozen new sponsors for the 2026 event. Even more impressive is that Stillwater Sports only started engaging with prospective sponsors in September 2025.

I had a fascinating chat with Stillwater Sports MD Michael Meyer about just what is involved in securing sponsorship deals for the Two Oceans Marathon and some behind the scenes insights.

5th April 20265th April 2026

Two Oceans 2026 Cutoffs (and why they don’t matter)

No one has written more about cutoffs than I have. I covered the empty finish line at Comrades 2023 (and kept pushing until we finally got an apology and some recompense for the runners seven weeks later), then came Two Oceans’ own cutoff debacle in 2024 (and the resultant post-race digimag update scandal that followed) and in 2024 Comrades were determined to repeat their same mistake until I threatened them with actuaries (and a spread bet) before they finally relented, added 10 minutes to the final cutoff at Mkondeni (which resulted in 117 additional runners earning their medal).

In short in-race cutoffs have come with a lot of drama at South African ultra marathons in recent years but they shouldn’t. In-race cutoffs should be boring. And at Two Oceans 2026 I am hoping that we achieve this goal.

26th March 20267th April 2026

Everything you need to know about Two Oceans 2026 batch seedings

The 2026 Two Oceans half and ultra marathon batch seedings are out. What’s new, what’s different and how much difference does a good seeding make? This article explains it all.

The big change is smaller batches

The one big change this year is that the seeding batches are much smaller, downsizing from about 1200 to 770 runners per batch in the half and just below 700 per batch in the full. This has resulted in an increase in the number of batches to 19 in the ultra and 23 in the half.

All batches will leave at two minute intervals* and, in the event that there is a start time delay, the in-race cutoffs will automatically be adjusted based on the time that the last batch actually starts. I will do a separate article on the cutoffs but I can confirm that they are both sensible and fair in 2026.

5th May 20246th May 2024

Two Oceans caught out in their own digimag lie

The starting gun fired thirteen times before dawn on Saturday the 13^th of April as wave after wave of Two Oceans ultra marathon runners set off on another voyage around the Cape Peninsula. Three weeks later and one smoking gun remains.