Vic Clapham fought in World War I as part of the 8th South African Infantry, which spent most of the conflict battling the Tanzanian landscape. After the war, he decided to stage a gruelling ultramarathon to honour his fallen comrades.

The race was meant to test the physical endurance of its participants, reflecting the 2 700-kilometre route march Clapham and his fellow soldiers endured during the war. This became known as the Comrades Marathon, which has since become renowned as the world’s oldest ultramarathon race.

However, Clapham’s story does not begin in South Africa but in London, where he was born on 16 November 1886.

When he was 13, his parents moved to the Cape Colony at the start of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899, where they settled in Cradock, in what is now the Eastern Cape.

Upon arriving, Clapham and his father enrolled in the Cradock Town Guard, which was a local civilian militia formed to defend local areas against Boer commando raids and protect infrastructure.

After finishing his schooling at Wynberg Boys’ High School in Cape Town, he moved to Natal to work as a train operator for the South African Railways. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Clapham signed up with the 8th South African Infantry. His service was spent traversing East Africa in pursuit of General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s battalions.

Von Lettow-Vorbeck, known as the Lion of Africa, was a general in the Imperial German Army and the commander of the German East Africa campaign.

Following the outbreak of World War I, Germany’s colonial empire immediately came under attack from the Allied Powers, soon losing all colonies in Africa except one: German East Africa, today known as Tanzania.

In 1916, General Jan Smuts, joined by two South African divisions, was sent into German East Africa to attempt to bolster the Allied Powers’ campaign against Lettow-Vorbeck’s troops.

These troops spent the rest of the war chasing after Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s small army. However, it was the East African terrain, wildlife, and diseases, such as malaria and dysentery, which claimed more lives than combat with German forces.

For instance, the 9th South African Infantry, which comprised 1 100 men when it arrived in February 1916, was reduced to 116 fully fit soldiers within eight months, despite seldom coming into contact with the enemy.

Clapham was one of the few fortunate enough to return home after the Lion of Africa surrendered two weeks after the armistice ended the war in Europe on 11 November 1918.

Following his return, Clapham felt it necessary to honour his comrades who were not as fortunate as he was. He decided that the best way to do this would be to stage an 87-kilometre race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.

His applications to the League of Comrades, a South African WWI veterans’ organisation, to hold the race failed in 1919 and 1920, but he was eventually given clearance in 1921.

So, at 7am on 24 May 1921, 34 entrants readied themselves in Pietermaritzburg for the inaugural event, with a cut-off time of 12 hours to complete the entire course.

Only 16 managed to do so within the time allocated. Bill Rowan won the first edition of the Comrades with a time of 8:59 (today, runners who finish the race with a time of between seven-and-a-half hours and nine hours are awarded the Bill Rowan medal).

The following year, it was decided that the race should start in Durban and end in Pietermaritzburg, known as the “up” run. This alternating route has become a longstanding tradition of the race.

Since then, the race has taken place every year except between 1941 and 1945 due to World War II, and in 2020 and 2021 due to Covid-19. This makes 2026 the 99th edition of the race and the 49th up run.

The women’s up and down records are both held by South African Gerda Steyn, at 5:49:46 and 5:44:54, respectively. South African Tete Dijana holds the men’s down record at 5:13:58, and Russian Leonid Shvetsov holds the up record at 5:24:39.

The route comprises five hills, all varying in elevation and length, with 40 refreshment stops positioned along it to provide athletes with drinks and snacks.

For this year’s edition of the race, the organisers have introduced an enhanced cut-off system, which uses green, amber, and red lights to provide clear pacing indicators to runners, who need to finish in twelve hours to win a medal.

The event, scheduled for 14 June, will start at Durban City Hall and finish at Scottsville Racecourse in Pietermaritzburg. This will be the shortest up run in the race’s history at 85.777 kilometres.