There is a sound that stops time. It has been doing it since 1949. A rooster crow, scratchy and unmistakable, recorded by a man named Max Trimborn who thought it would be a fun way to mark race morning. Trimborn kept crowing at the start of Comrades until he died. Now his voice lives on a recording, and every year on race day, thousands of runners hear it and feel something shift in their chests. That is the Comrades Marathon in miniature - a race so old, so strange, and so deeply human that it has its own ghost. On Sunday, 14 June 2026, that rooster crows again. And this year carries weight that even seasoned Comrades veterans will feel.
There is a sound that stops time.
It has been doing it since 1949. A rooster crow, scratchy and unmistakable, recorded by a man named Max Trimborn who thought it would be a fun way to mark race morning. Trimborn kept crowing at the start of Comrades until he died. Now his voice lives on a recording, and every year on race day, thousands of runners hear it and feel something shift in their chests. That is the Comrades Marathon in miniature - a race so old, so strange, and so deeply human that it has its own ghost.
On Sunday, 14 June 2026, that rooster crows again. And this year carries weight that even seasoned Comrades veterans will feel.
The 99th. The 50th Up Run. The Shortest Up Route on Record.
This is a year of numbers that matter.
The 2026 race is the 99th edition of the Comrades Marathon, which means next year will be the centenary of an event that has survived two world wars, a pandemic and over a hundred years of heat, hills and human stubbornness. The 99th edition also happens to be the 50th time the race has run in the Up Run direction from Durban's City Hall northward and upward to Pietermaritzburg. For anyone who has ever climbed those hills, that milestone means something.
Then there is the distance. The official distance for the 99th edition has been confirmed as 85.777km, making it the shortest Up Run distance in recent Comrades Marathon history. That reduction, largely due to route adjustments necessitated by ongoing infrastructure developments, might sound like good news to legs that have suffered on previous Up Runs. And it is. But shorter does not mean easy. It never does on this course.
The 2026 race also introduces an earlier start time, a three-group start format and an enhanced cut-off system. All runners will continue to receive the full 12 hours to complete the race, with each group's official race time commencing at the firing of the start gun for that specific group.
The race entry cap sits at 22 000 runners. Up from the earliest editions, when 34 souls turned up in Pietermaritzburg in 1921 not entirely sure what they had agreed to.
The Man Who Started All of This
Here is something worth knowing before you understand why Comrades matters the way it does.
Vic Clapham was a World War One veteran, a train engineer from Durban who had endured the East African campaign with the South African Infantry, marching over 2 700 kilometres through German East Africa in bruising heat. When the war ended, Clapham wanted to establish a memorial to the suffering and deaths of his comrades during the war, and their camaraderie in overcoming these hardships. He conceived of an extremely demanding race where the physical endurance of entrants could be put to the test.
He was told, more than once, that he was mad. He approached the League of Comrades about the idea in 1918 but received no support. They thought that the idea was crazy, far too strenuous for even trained runners. But he did not give up over the next several years, and eventually received approval for the event to be held in 1921.
The first Comrades Marathon took place in blistering heat on 24 May 1921. 48 entered, 34 started and only 16 managed to complete the race. It was won by William (Bill) Rowan, a 26-year-old farmer from Koster, in 8 hours and 59 minutes, with Harry J. Phillips in second place at 9:40 and John A. Annan in third place at 10:10.
Rowan's name now lives on as the Bill Rowan medal, awarded to runners who finish between 7 hours 30 minutes and 8:59:59. Clapham's name sits on the medal given to those who scrape home in the final hour, 11 to 12 hours. These men are woven into the fabric of the race in the most permanent way possible. Every finish line carries their names.
The constitution of the race still states, over a century later, that one of its primary aims is to "celebrate mankind's spirit over adversity." Clapham did not write marketing copy. He meant it.
Ska Fela Moya
This year's race slogan is three words in Setswana: Ska Fela Moya. Don't Give Up.
The winning slogan was chosen from over 200 submissions from the running community. CMA general manager Alain Dalais said the slogan captures the essence of endurance and hope. It symbolises courage and motivation, the very spirit of the Comrades.
The launch of the 2026 race was also a moment of grief. The programme included a tribute to the late Cheryl Winn, who passed away three days prior. The 1982 women's winner remains the only former Comrades Marathon champion to become Chair of the CMA Board, and she was widely recognised as the matriarch of the event thanks to over 30 years' devoted service to the Comrades Marathon.
There is something quietly right about a race that honours its dead with a slogan that says: keep going.
What Race Morning Actually Feels Like
Runners who have never done Comrades often struggle to explain what the start is like to people who have never been there. Let me try.
The gun goes off at 05:30. Before that - before Max Trimborn's rooster, before the starter's pistol, the crowd sings. The South African national anthem rolls through thousands of voices in the Durban dark. Then comes Shosholoza, the old miners' song, which in this context sounds less like a work chant and more like a battle hymn. After Shosholoza, the Chariots of Fire theme plays over the loudspeakers, and you get goosebumps thinking about the vast history of this race and the enormity of what you are about to undertake. Next comes the famous rooster crow, started by Comrades runner Max Trimborn in the late 1940s. Max repeated this call at the start of every Comrades for decades until his death.
Then the gun.
For 2026, the CMA has confirmed that the traditions stay. All three start groups will experience the national anthem, Shosholoza, Chariots of Fire and Max Trimborn's cock-crow. Group 1 gets the full programme. Groups 2 and 3 get a condensed version. Nobody gets cheated out of the moment that matters.
Race Director Sue Forge has been clear that tradition is not negotiable, even as the operational shape of the race evolves. This is a race that has been running for over a century. It knows what it is.
The Route: Durban to Pietermaritzburg, the Hard Way
The Up Run starts at Durban's City Hall at roughly 101 metres above sea level and ends at Scottsville Racecourse in Pietermaritzburg at approximately 650 metres. That net elevation gain is not evenly distributed. The climbing front-loads itself aggressively into the first half, demanding patience from every runner who has ever gone out too fast at the bottom of a hill.
The Comrades route has five registered hills, the "Big Five." In order of appearance they are: Cowie's Hill, Fields Hill, Botha's Hill, Inchanga and Polly Shortts. Three of the "Big Five" are found in the first half of the race. From the base of Cowie's Hill to the top of Botha's Hill, you climb 502 metres in the space of only 22 kilometres.
Cowie's Hill arrives at roughly the 15km mark. It is the gentlest of the five, which is faint praise on a day like this, about 2km of climbing that wakes the legs up before Pinetown. Many runners make the mistake of thinking the effort they put in here is free. It is not.
Fields Hill follows almost immediately. It is 4km of very steep climbing that arrives right after the half marathon mark. In a flat race, a half marathon is where you start to feel comfortable. On the Up Run, it is where the road tilts sharply upward.
Botha's Hill at around 35km is short but brutal. Probably the steepest of the Big Five, and at roughly the highest point of the first half of the race. Experienced runners walk significant portions of Botha's without shame or hesitation. Preservation of leg strength here is the difference between a decent second half and a very long afternoon.
Inchanga begins near the halfway mark at around 44km. Inchanga, with its mad twists and turns, is steep and punishing. After Polly Shortts, it is the most difficult hill to negotiate. The Zulu name gives some indication of its character - Ntshangwe, meaning a long-bladed knife or ridge. From the top, you can see the Valley of a Thousand Hills. It is the sort of view that makes you forget, briefly, how much your legs hurt.
Then, at roughly 75km, when the body has been at it for somewhere between six and nine hours, comes the one that breaks deals.
Polly Shortts. A 2.7km climb roughly 10km from the end of the race. The name sounds almost friendly. It is not. A signboard at the bottom announces its arrival as though warning you. Ahead is the sharpest pitch of the day. At this point in the race, nearly every runner is walking. Not because they want to. Because it is the only thing left.
Those who have run it describe a very specific feeling on Polly Shortts - something between suffering and gratitude. You are so close to the finish. The body is so empty. The hill does not care about either of those facts.
The Records That Might Fall
With the shortest route on record for the Up Run being run this year, coupled with lucrative cash incentives for runners to chase the best time and best pace records, we may see those records fall again in 2026, says Race Director Sue Forge.
The men's Up Run record belongs to Russia's Leonid Shvetsov, who covered the 2008 route in 5:24:39. The women's record is owned by South Africa's Gerda Steyn. In 2024, Steyn came home in 5:49:46 to shatter her own previous Up Run best of 5:58:53, set in 2019 on an 86.730km route. That had also seen her become the first woman to achieve a sub-six hours finish on the Up Run.
Should the winners of the 2026 Comrades Marathon break the best time previously recorded for the Up Run, he or she will receive an additional cash payment of R605 000.
That is a significant incentive on a course that measures 85.777km, the shortest in recent Up Run history. The conditions are as favourable for record-breaking as they have been in years. Whether the athletes who show up on 14 June can deliver is another matter entirely, but the stage is set.
What You Win When You Finish
The medal system at Comrades is unlike anything else in road running. It is not a podium sport for most of its 22 000 entrants. It is a personal reckoning, and the medals reflect that.
The top ten men and women receive gold medals. A silver medal goes to men who finish over six hours and under seven and a half hours. A bronze medal is awarded to anyone who completes the race in over ten hours but less than eleven hours. Any man who finishes outside the top ten but under six hours gets a Wally Hayward medal, and any woman from 11th downwards and sub seven hours receives an Isavel Roche-Kelly medal.
The remaining medals for both men and women are the Bill Rowan (seven hours 30 minutes to sub nine hours), the Robert Mtshali (nine hours to sub ten hours) and the Vic Clapham (eleven hours to sub twelve hours).
Robert Mtshali was the first black runner to complete the Comrades in 1935, doing so unofficially because the race was not yet open to all athletes. He crossed the line in roughly nine and a half hours. His name on the medal is a reminder that the history of this race contains both beauty and ugliness, and that finishing it has always meant something.
The Vic Clapham medal - for those who come home in the last hour, between 11 and 12 hours, carries its own particular weight. To earn it, you have often been on your feet for nearly half a day. Your body has been in negotiation with your brain for hours. You probably walked more than you planned. You finished anyway. There is nothing small about that.
And then there is the Back2Back medal, introduced in 2005, which requires nothing except finishing in consecutive years. No time cut-off. No qualifying standard beyond the twelve hours. Run it two years in a row, and it is yours.
The People Who Make It Extraordinary
Numbers do not tell this story properly. People do.
Bruce Fordyce is the most decorated male Comrades champion in history. He is best known for having won the Comrades Marathon a record nine times, of which eight wins were consecutive. He won from 1981 to 1988 in an unbroken streak, then returned to win again in 1990. No other runner has done anything close to it. He is still part of the race's living culture, turning up at events and talking to runners with the easy authority of someone who has run Polly Shortts more times than most people have thought about it.
Elena Nurgalieva of Russia leads the women's all-time wins tally with eight victories. She also holds the record for gold medals in the women's race, with 13. Her presence at Comrades across those years made the women's race genuinely compelling to watch - a level of dominance that belongs to a very small category of athletes in any sport.
Louis Massyn has completed 50 Comrades Marathons, the most in history. In 2023, Johannes Maros Mosehla became the oldest known finisher aged 81, a record he extended in 2024 and 2025.
Fifty completions. Eighty-one years old and still finishing. These are the numbers that stop you mid-conversation when you hear them for the first time.
Antony Clapham, the great-grandson of founder Vic Clapham, ran the race from 2012 to 2015, earning four Vic Clapham medals. The man who started all of this has descendants still finishing it, still earning the copper medal that bears his name, more than a century after he got tired of being told it was impossible.
Why the Up Run Hits Differently
There is a genuine debate in the Comrades community about which direction is harder. The Down Run, from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, punishes the quads with long descents that shred the legs over 90-odd kilometres. The Up Run asks something different. It does not reward aggression. It rewards the runner who can look at a hill and decide, without drama, to walk it. Who can reach 50km with four Big Five hills in the legs and still feel capable of something. Speed gets you nowhere on this course if you have spent it too early.
The Up Run is a long day of ever-increasing fatigue. By the 36km point you have run three of the Big Five hills and reached the second-highest point on the route. That's an enormous amount of climbing. By 50km you have done four of the Big Five - yet still have 36km to go.
The profile gets gentler after that, rolling rather than rearing, until Polly Shortts arrives to deliver the final insult. What the Up Run does to a runner is cumulative. You are not destroyed all at once. You are worn down, hill after hill, kilometre after kilometre, through the Valley of a Thousand Hills, past Drummond and through Cato Ridge, through the heat and the noise and the crowd stations, until somewhere around the 70km mark you realise that the version of yourself that started in Durban no longer exists.
What crosses the line in Pietermaritzburg is something else. That is the point.
A Race Built on Meaning
The Comrades Marathon is the world's oldest and largest ultramarathon. To date, over 300 000 runners have completed the race. That number carries a hundred years of stories - of first-timers who never forgot it, of veterans who came back for decades, of people who found something on that road that they had not been looking for.
The 2026 slogan, Ska Fela Moya, was chosen from over 200 community submissions. It is in Setswana, one of South Africa's eleven official languages. Three words that have probably been said by a parent to a child, a coach to an athlete, a friend to a friend, in moments of genuine difficulty. The organisers chose a phrase that was already being used in real life, by real people. That is not accidental.
That resonance is what the slogan is trying to capture. Every runner who has ever trained through a bad week, dragged themselves out in the dark when nobody was watching, or shuffled up Polly Shortts on legs that stopped cooperating around the 65km mark, they already know what those three words mean.
This is what Vic Clapham built in 1921, when nobody believed him, when the athletics authorities turned him away, when he had neither a car nor a telephone and had to do his organising by letter. He did not give up. He found a way. And 34 runners showed up on Empire Day and started running toward Durban, unsure whether what they were attempting was possible.
Sixteen of them finished.
That is a 47% completion rate. On the first attempt. In blistering heat. With no GPS, no gels, no compression socks, no pace groups. They did it because Vic Clapham asked them to try something hard in memory of people who had given everything.
On 14 June 2026, 22 000 runners will stand at the start in Durban before dawn. The cockerel will crow. The anthem will play. The gun will fire. And every one of those runners will carry something - a goal, a fear, a memory, a name - up 85.777km of KwaZulu-Natal hills.
Ska Fela Moya.
Don't give up.
Race Details at a Glance
- Date: Sunday, 14 June 2026
- Direction: Up Run
- Start: Durban City Hall (approx. 101m above sea level)
- Finish: Scottsville Racecourse, Pietermaritzburg (approx. 650m above sea level)
- Official Distance: 85.777km
- Cut-off: 12 hours (gun to mat)
- Start Format: Three-group staggered start
- Entry Cap: 22 000 runners
- Slogan: Ska Fela Moya - Don't Give Up
- Edition: 99th Comrades Marathon / 50th Up Run
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