An 81-year-old bricklayer has change into the oldest particular person to finish South Africa’s storied Comrades Marathon, ending this 12 months’s 87.7-km run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban in 9:26:10.
Sunday’s history-making run by Johannes Mosehla, who hails from the South African metropolis of Polokwane, marked the tenth time the speedy senior has accomplished the Comrades Marathon, the world’s largest ultra-marathon. In response to feedback Mosehla made at Monday’s awards breakfast at Durban’s Elangeni Resort on Monday, this 12 months’s Comrades received’t be his final.
Johannes Mosehla 9:26:10 oldest ever #Comrades finisher
Fordyce has stated that biggest 2 Comrades runs had been Frith vd Merwe’s 1989 5:54:43 document (fifteenth general) & 79yo Wally Hayward’s 9:44:15 in 1988. Wally returned in 1989 to set document as oldest Comrade with a ten:58:03 end. pic.twitter.com/rY3HSeFUKv— The Working Mann (Marathons & Mischief) (@runningmann100) June 11, 2023
“I really feel sturdy,” South Africa’s news24 reported Mosehla as saying. “I might run it once more!” he added, confirming that he plans to return to Comrades in 2024.
He informed these on the breakfast that there aren’t any shortcuts to turning into Comrades’ oldest finisher: “My secret is to coach. You possibly can’t win with out coaching,” stated Mosehla, who has been working since 1963 and continues to coach 3 times every week, overlaying distances from 5 to 32 km.
Meet the 81 years outdated Johannes Mosehla from Sekhukhune turned the oldest ever for Comrades finisher at 9:26:10.He broke the document set by Wally hayward because the oldest particular person to finish the race in 1989 which he ran 10:58:03 on the age of 80 @SeshegoMarathon @ComradesRace pic.twitter.com/sOi2K6c6Ih
— DANY G (@ChueneDaniel) June 12, 2023
Comrades alternates between the “down” course, which was run this 12 months and is so-named for its relative descent in elevation, and the “up” course, which begins in Durban and ends in Pietermaritzburg.
Noting he was proud to tug off his record-breaking effort “for the entire nation,” Mosehla stated he hopes his run sends the message that folks “should not search for a quantity or age. I’m 81, however I have to not have a look at that quantity. I have to be managed by my physique. When I’m nonetheless sturdy, I have to not have a look at my age.”
Congratulations Tete Morena Dijana for successful the 96th Comrades Marathon in a greatest time of 05:13:58 🥳🖤💛#ThisIsIt #Ziyasha #TheUltimateHumanRace pic.twitter.com/XdVfrfTHiT
— ComradesRace (@ComradesRace) June 12, 2023
Mosehla’s run broke the decades-old document set by Comrades legend Wally Hayward, who at age 80 crossed the end line of the 1989 Comrades Marathon lower than two minutes earlier than the 11-hour cutoff time.
Hawyard’s wasn’t the one document to fall at Sunday’s race. Final 12 months’s winner, Tete Dijana of Rustenburg, South Africa, defended his Comrades crown in 5:13:58, shaving greater than 4 minutes off the “down” document set by David Gatebe in 2016.
Congratulations to Gerda Steyn for successful the 96th Comrades Marathon in a greatest time of 05:44:54 🥳🖤💛#ThisIsIt #Ziyasha #TheUltimateHumanRace pic.twitter.com/CXHpJyTC06
— ComradesRace (@ComradesRace) June 12, 2023
Gerda Steyn ran this 12 months’s course in 5:44:56, breaking the ladies’s “down” document set by fellow South African runner Frith van der Merwe in 1989 by practically 10 minutes.
