Anti-apartheid activists had been relentlessly harassed, intimidated and imprisoned. Now suddenly the government was unbaning them. Four years later in April 1994 South Africa held its first democratic election. Nelson Mandela became president. We all just start thinking we own the country now. Everything is ours.
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