The comrades was started by white South African World War One veteran named Vic Clapham. To honor his comrades who had fallen in the war, he designed a run between his hometown of Peter Meritzburg and the coastal city of Durban about 56 miles away. In those early days, the press called it a quote, marathon go as you please.
If you live in South Africa, you definitely know someone who runs ultra-marathons, probably lots of someones. Here, ultras are the stuff of a whole country’s new years resolutions and mid-life crises. They’re the kind of thing that a totally ordinary, not-athletic person wakes up one day and decides they’re going to do -- and then does. In one of the most economically unequal countries in the world, extreme distance running is a sport that feels like it includes everybody. And improbably, that inclusiveness happened during one of the darkest, most divided moments in South Africa’s history – during the final years of apartheid.
The Comrades