Comrades Marathon

noun

1. Often shortened to: the Comrades. an annual long-distance race run every year on the 16th of June from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, a distance of approximately 90 kilometres (56 miles)

Word History and Origins

Origin of Comrades Marathon¹

C20: first run after WWI by returning servicemen to commemorate their fallen comrades

Example Sentences

South Africa's Comrades Marathon, linking Durban and Pietermaritzburg, describes itself as the oldest ultra-marathon in the world, stretching for about 55 miles through KwaZulu-Natal province.

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These next six months, Walmsley plans to take on ultrarunning’s two biggest races: South Africa’s 55-mile Comrades Marathon and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, or UTMB, a 106-mile mountainous trek through the Alps.

Read more on Slate

He struggled for most of the next decade and had one last surge of greatness to win the 55-mile Comrades Marathon in South Africa in 1994, at age 34.

Read more on New York Times

Cheryl Winn, who chairs the Comrades Marathon Association, says the run is about “the power of the human spirit.”

Read more on Seattle Times

I fell a day behind, which means I’ll have to run two marathons on the last day, it’s called the Comrades Marathon – 56 miles in a day is what I’m going to attempt.

Read more on The Guardian