TTOM LEGEND
Norrie Williamson at the finishline of his 22nd TTOM Half Marathon in 2024
Treble A UNIQUE
Proudly accepting his unique third TTOM Blue Number in 2025
To date, only one athlete, Norrie Williamson, has managed to earn three separate Blue Numbers in the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon Ultra, Half Marathon and Trail Runs, but there is a lot more to his Two Oceans career than simply crossing the finish line 42 times. – BY SEAN FALCONER
Norrie Williamson has more than one claim to fame. In his storied sporting career, the former native of Scotland has played provincial-level rugby in Scotland, transitioned to road running and triathlon and represented both the United Kingdom and South Africa on the world stage, accrued a remarkable number of ultra-marathon finishes( including the notoriously tough 254km Spartathlon in Greece), became a renowned running coach with published books and groundbreaking online coaching services, and cemented a reputation as a world-class accredited road running course measurer and technical official. Along the way, Norrie also became the only athlete – to date – to earn a permanent number in all three of the Ultra Marathon, Half Marathon and Trail Run events at the Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon.
He ran his first Ultra in 1982 and completed his 10th in 1996 to earn Blue Number 957, with
“ I’ ve missed a number of years along the way, but I’ ve still got 42 Two Oceans medals – and I’ ve only been in the country for 45 years this February – so I think that’ s quite good.” a remarkable 10 silver medals and a best time of 3:46:02. From 2000 to 2010 he focused on earning Light Blue Number 161 in the Half Marathon, and since then has added a further 12 Half medals to his collection. In 2012, he also began running the Two Oceans Trail Run, which was usually held on the Friday before the main road events, and thus he could do both the Trail Run and Half on the same weekend – a feat he has managed eight times – and in 2025, Norrie completed his 10th Trail Run to earn Khaki Number 9. We sat down for a chat with him about his unique TTOM record.
Q: So, you have this unique achievement at Two Oceans, the only athlete with Blue Numbers in three different Two Oceans races. What motivated you through the journey of going for all three?
NW: I arrived in South Africa in 1981 and started running that year, and in 1982 ran my first Two Oceans Ultra, going on to get 10 silvers in 10 runs. It was a very different race back then. I mean, my first Two Oceans Ultra was at Villagers, and you started on the rugby field line and literally had to sprint to get to the gate first, otherwise you would be standing there for a while! I very much adopted Bruce Fordyce’ s approach, to secure a silver medal with a sub-four-hour finish at Two Oceans and then focus on the longer ultras, and in my case that
30 Totalsports Two Oceans Marathon 2026
Norrie’ s long TTOM career includes organising pacesetters and designing pacing charts as the official Old Mutual Virtual Coach of the event