The Finish Line Becomes Alive

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The clock reads 11 hours 53 minutes as she jogs over the finish line and bursts into tears. Meanwhile hundreds of people are still streaming over the finished line. All at once a line of comrade staff swarms across the whole finish line blocking anyone still on the course from finishing. Dazed exhausted runners keep slamming into it. I hate this part seeing all these people who've been running for 12 hours not finish they look shattered but watching them also reminds me why Shahida's 12 hour bus is so powerful, he says.

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