In 1996 Nelson Mandela came to the comrades to present the winners their trophies. His presence at the race underscored that it had become a South African institution. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s its popularity continued to grow drawing more and more new runners. Runners like future comrades pacer Shahida Tondo.
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