As the time of writing this week’s column presents itself, there is no clear one-track decision on what its content might hold. There is nothing unusual about that though.
Speaking about running issues, as we so often do as runners or indeed followers of the sport, we do stimulate performance, ideals, goals and, of course, friendships.
To everything there is a season, they say, and goodness knows the seasons have a pace of their own.
They start fairly slowly and pick up or drop off pace as the intricacies of racing different distances present themselves.
Take the past two weeks of shorter races amidst all the excitement and intrigue of the launch of the 100th Comrades Marathon.
At the end of “entries day one” that was opened up to entries for 2027 (10am on Tuesday), only for runners who hold yellow and green numbers.
Yellow are for runners with nine Comrades to their names, while green are for those who have achieved 10 completed Comrades Marathons or more.
During the course of the morning messages came through from some of the runners well known to me who are chasing new milestones.
The first was Stephanie Kretzmann, a delightful ultra marathon-loving lady who has achieved so much already. That can be a story for another occasion. She was so very excited to have received confirmation of entry within the first hour, and my message arrived at 10.58am.
All things being equal, Stephanie will be receiving her green number 12507 upon arrival at the Durban finish on June 13. She has finished every Comrades she started between 1995 and 2025.
The second communication came via a call from Efese Peter, now 66, who made his début in 1992.
In 1993 he ran his fastest Comrades at the age of 33 in a time of 6:24:57. His call was to ask for assistance in entering. The power of belief in another?
It took somewhat longer. The original request having arrived on Friday, it was eventually the prompts from both Peter and his friend Liesbet Mohutsiwa that ensured we got cracking at 13.34, and by 17.24 Efese was accepted and on the proverbial road to receiving his double green for an expected 20 completed Comrades marathons in number 29922.
Efese has completed every Comrades he has started. He won numerous local ultra marathons and has Border colours for representing the province at the standard marathon championships.
The third member to confirm entry into the 100th Comrades marathon could be described as a no-nonsense, some might suggest “full of it”, Andre Schoombee.
I had not heard much from Andre since assisting in his preparation for the Washie 100 in 2018. That was a project to test us both, and he did exceptionally well, while the process was enjoyable.
So the message arrived on Sunday last. “Need some help here.”
Got him signed up with a club and a licence to make him legal (he is, of course, an attorney).
Andre turns 60 next year and has done no running for about four years.
His first Comrades was in 1998; he ran a personal best in 2000 of 9:24:23 and had a long sabbatical from 2006 to 2018.
He was onto the entries fairly early and by 12:31 sent a message" “I’m in. Took me two hours.”
He then sent a flag from Comrades to say “Yellow numbers sold out within less than six hours.”
An hour later he was back. “Green number entries — sold out. 13,500 entries in less than seven hours.”
And this is just the beginning.
Happily, it is not only Comrades that keeps us busy.
I had the pleasure this past week of chatting to a young man with the world “in” his feet and legs. I refer to Luyolo Ngcongolo, a man who streaks past many runners in a yellow flash — the colours of Powered Up Runners.
Ngcongolo is going to be running the London Big Half-Marathon on Sunday September 6 thanks to the support of the Kotela Mbekeni Foundation.
He is but 26 years old and has won more local races than most. He has a 63:13 half-marathon time and ran 2:16:59 for the Buffalo City Marathon on May 1.
This will be his first international trip and race abroad. Brian Kotela is sure he will do well, as are we who cover all his running results.
Last week his name was confused with a Brac runner, Luxolo, and his finish time at the MBSA Gallop of 55:50 was incorrectly captured in the article.
More coverage on the trip and Luyolo’s prospects, along with the results, will all be reported on these pages.
In the footsteps of Malixole Kalideni and Yanga Malusi.