Once you say why, then it's a mission. After Comrades is accomplished, it's a new chapter again.
Each June, tens of thousands of South Africans gather before dawn in Durban to run nearly fifty-five miles together — a ritual now in its ninety-ninth year that began as a memorial for the war dead and has become something far larger: a living argument that a fractured nation can, for one day, move as one. The Comrades Marathon, born in 1921 as an all-white men's race, was desegregated in 1975 and televised into every home in the 1980s, offering a country under apartheid rare images of black and white bodies straining side by side toward the same finish line. What endures is not merely the athletic feat but the human one — the discovery, repeated by twenty thousand people every year, that suffering shared across difference is its own form of belonging.
- A race conceived to honor the fallen has quietly become one of the world's most radical experiments in social integration, drawing security guards and CEOs, township runners and international elites, all to the same brutal road.
- The tension between South Africa's deep racial inequality and the race's democratic spirit is never fully resolved — it surfaces in every story of who can afford training, who has a club, who owns a pair of proper shoes.
- William Seleka, running from grief after his marriage collapsed, represents the thousands for whom Comrades is not a sporting event but a lifeline — a structured reason to keep moving when life has stopped making sense.
- On the course itself, the race frays and holds simultaneously: runners collapse, wrong shoes cause agony, strangers become pacer-bus families singing through the dark, and a ten-time finisher doubles over in anguish just seconds past the cutoff.
- The finish line absorbs all of it — tears, stretchers, dancing, collapse — and the ninety-one percent completion rate this year suggests that the mission, however imperfect, is landing.
Before dawn in Durban, more than twenty thousand runners waited in the dark as the national anthem gave way to Shosholoza — the old miners' song — and then the piano of Chariots of Fire. At five o'clock, a gun fired, and the Comrades Marathon began its ninety-ninth running.
The race was born in 1921 when First World War veteran Vic Clapham organized a fifty-four-mile memorial run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. Thirty-four white men started; sixteen finished. A century later, the distance has settled at just under fifty-five miles, the direction alternates each year, and the field has become a cross-section of South African life — bankers and shop workers, celebrities and security guards, all moving together through the country's hills for one day every June.
That transformation was not inevitable. Women and black runners competed unofficially for decades before the race was formally desegregated in 1975. Then television changed everything. By 1986, the full race was broadcast nationally, and South Africans watched delivery driver Hoseah Tjale race against eight-time champion Bruce Fordyce. Small gestures — a white runner sharing water with a black runner — carried enormous weight in a society built on separation. When Sam Tshabalala became the first black winner in 1989, it felt like proof that apartheid's walls, at least here, could be climbed.
William Seleka was among this year's twenty thousand. Six months earlier, after his marriage ended, he had fallen into depression and begun running simply to survive. A Johannesburg township club called Run Alex took him in. He trained on weekday evenings after repairing refrigerators, and ran up to fifty kilometers on Saturdays. He wanted to finish for his fifteen-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, and for his sister, whose kidneys had failed in 2018.
This year's up run climbed eighteen hundred meters toward Pietermaritzburg. By thirty-four miles, Seleka was in agony from the wrong pair of shoes. He distracted himself by counting, then by singing — hymns he didn't know he knew. He found a clubmate's shoes at a later aid station and pushed on.
As darkness fell, the finish line absorbed everything: dancers with arms outstretched, strangers crossing arm in arm, runners carried away on stretchers. The largest cheer came for pacer Shahieda Thungo, who brought dozens of runners home at 11:56:34. But the cutoff claimed others — including a ten-time finisher who doubled over, face in her hands, seconds too late.
Seleka crossed at 10:30:49, crying. He was already planning his return. 'If you're going through a lot,' he said, 'once you say why, then it's a mission. After Comrades is accomplished, it's a new chapter again.'
Before dawn on a June morning in Durban, more than twenty thousand runners gathered in the dark, waiting. The national anthem played. Then came Shosholoza, that haunting song first sung by Zimbabwean miners in South Africa's goldmines. And then the unmistakable piano of Chariots of Fire. At five o'clock, a gun fired. The runners streamed across the start line of the Comrades Marathon, the world's oldest and largest ultramarathon, now in its ninety-ninth year.
When the first Comrades began in 1921, it was a memorial race conceived by a First World War veteran named Vic Clapham to honor his fallen comrades. Thirty-four runners lined up that day—all white men. Sixteen finished. The course ran fifty-four miles downhill from Pietermaritzburg to Durban on the coast. The next year it reversed direction, climbing back uphill, and it has alternated every year since, pausing only for the Second World War and the pandemic. Over a century later, the distance has settled at just under fifty-five miles, and the race has become something woven into the fabric of South African life. Security guards and shop workers now stand alongside bankers and celebrities. Running clubs bus in from across the country. For one day every June, the country's searing racial inequality seems to dissolve.
William Seleka was one of those twenty thousand. Two weeks before the race, he was stretching outside the single room he rented in the Johannesburg township of Alexandra, preparing for a journey he could barely have imagined six months earlier. In March 2025, after his marriage ended, Seleka had fallen into a deep depression. He started running to stay alive, to keep himself busy. A local club called Run Alex took him in. Six months later, having never run further than ten kilometers, he finished a fifty-kilometer ultramarathon from Johannesburg to Pretoria. The idea of running from Durban to Pietermaritzburg had once seemed insane to him. Now he was doing it.
Seleka worked repairing appliances for a refrigerator manufacturer. On weekday evenings after work, he ran at least ten kilometers. On Saturdays, he ran up to fifty kilometers with Run Alex. Recovery, he said, was a half marathon. He wanted to finish for his fifteen-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. "I can't wait to have my red cap and the medal to show my kids," he said. The race was an up run this year, meaning runners would climb about eighteen hundred meters on their way to Pietermaritzburg, which sat six hundred fifty meters higher than Durban. Three batches of runners started at five, five-fifteen, and five-thirty in the morning.
The Comrades had not always been open to everyone. In 1923, Frances Hayward became the first woman to start and finish. In 1935, Robert Mtshali was the first black man to complete the race. Yet with only white men officially allowed to compete, the race seemed destined to remain what most ultramarathons still are—a niche, elite pursuit. That changed in 1975 when the privately run race was desegregated and opened to women. South Africa had been shut out of all major global sporting events because of apartheid, and some in the sporting world believed that desegregating minor sports might show the world that the country was not as backward and racist as it appeared. Then came television. In 1976, the single, heavily censored state channel began showing Comrades highlights. By 1986, it broadcast the entire race in full. South Africans watched delivery driver Hoseah Tjale compete against Bruce Fordyce, a professional athlete who won eight Comrades in a row beginning in 1981. In the 1980s, scenes of a white runner sharing a bottle of water with a black runner were small gestures that meant something enormous in a society so divided. Tjale and Sam Tshabalala, the first black man to win Comrades in 1989, were proof that apartheid's constraints could be broken.
As the runners left Durban, they wound upward through lush trees, open fields, and small towns. Families cooked meat by the roadside. Running clubs handed out supplies from gazebos pumping out music. Everybody cheered. By the halfway point, most runners were walking up each hill. Seleka changed into a spare pair of shoes at the Run Alex aid station, but it was the wrong choice. By thirty-four miles, he was in agony. He distracted himself by counting or singing. "I'm not a person who goes to church," he said. "But on that day I started to sing. I don't know where those songs came from." Around forty-six miles, he found another aid station and put on a clubmate's shoes. He pushed on.
As light turned golden, some runners danced across the finish line with arms outstretched. Some came in arm in arm, complete strangers who had become friends on the road. Many stumbled or collapsed and were carried away on stretchers. Darkness fell. Guns fired for the first twelve-hour cutoff, then the second. About a third of Comrades runners finish in the final hour. South Africa's pacing buses are unique in long-distance running for their size and camaraderie, with runners singing and chanting behind a metronomic pacer known as a bus driver. The biggest cheer came when the final twelve-hour bus driver, Shahieda Thungo, crossed the line at 11:56:34, carrying dozens of runners home with her. About ninety-one percent of runners finished this year. But there were those who just missed the cutoff. At exactly 5:30 p.m., a wall of people stepped across the finish line. Two women ran into them, seconds short. One, wearing the green bib of a ten-time finisher, doubled over in anguish, her face in her hands.
Seleka cried as he crossed the line at 10:30:49. He was thinking of his sister, whose kidneys failed in 2018. "At the start, everything changed," he said. "I said this pain today is for my younger sister." He was already planning his race next year. Everyone needs a reason to finish the Comrades, he said. "If you're going through a lot, once you say why, then it's a mission. After Comrades is accomplished, it's a new chapter again."
Citações Notáveis
I thought for me to stay alive, I had to keep myself busy.— William Seleka, on why he started running after his marriage ended
If you're going through a lot, once you say why, then it's a mission.— William Seleka, on what it takes to finish the Comrades
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does this race matter so much to South Africa specifically? It's a running event—why does it carry this weight?
Because it's one of the few spaces where the country's divisions actually dissolve, at least for a day. When you have security guards running alongside bankers, when you have people from townships finishing the same race as people from wealthy suburbs, that's not nothing in a country still healing from apartheid.
But isn't that just symbolism? Does a shared finish line actually change anything?
Maybe not the economy or the politics. But for someone like William Seleka, who was suicidal after his marriage fell apart, the race gave him a reason to wake up. It gave him a community. That's not symbolic—that's real.
The article mentions that desegregation in 1975 was partly a PR move, to make South Africa look less racist. So the race's inclusivity was cynical at first?
Perhaps. But then television showed images of black and white runners sharing water during apartheid's final years. Those images mattered. They showed people something they weren't supposed to see. And over time, the race became genuinely inclusive, not just performatively so.
What strikes you most about Seleka's story?
That he ran for his sister who died. That he sang songs he didn't know he knew. That he cried at the finish. The race became a way to transform his grief into something that moved him forward. That's what the Comrades does—it takes people's pain and gives it a shape, a distance, a finish line.