Probably the most recognised recreational runner on South African roads

’ ve known Julian since well before he ran his 20th marathon … which was many years before I ran my first. At the time, I was a student with a hairstyle rivalling Julian’ s famous locks, and I was earning some extra cash by waitering in a Spur. Julian was a regular customer who would come in after a gym session, for a grilled chicken burger and a side salad. He ran with my father, so I’ d often alleviate the boredom of a quiet shift with a conversation about running.

When I eventually started running myself, I regularly saw Julian on the Gauteng roads. I remember bumping into him one Sunday morning whilst running the Soweto Marathon in 2011. He was, of course, on his second marathon of the weekend, and nonchalantly told me that he had set himself the challenge of running 50 marathons in his 50th year – and he duly did just that, with 35 standard marathons and 15 ultras that year. Then in 2016, Julian ran 50 standard marathons and 12 ultras to set the South African record of 62 official marathons in a calendar year!

Julian has had his sights on reaching 1000 marathons for some time now, and has been steadily knocking them off. He started this year on 984 and his plan was to run his 1000th at the original Athens Marathon in November, but deep down, I knew that there was no way that Julian could help himself and curtail his marathon running addiction to that extent … and so here we are, several months ahead of schedule, with Julian set to start his 30th Comrades Marathon on 8 June with his running record showing 999.

( Sidenote: Julian only counts official road marathons or ultras, so the handful of trail ultras he has completed are only listed on his unofficial catalogue. Also, most long-distance runners in South Africa are defined by their Comrades pedigree, but Julian is the exception. His 29 Comrades are just a few incidental ticks on the most impressive recreational running CV in South Africa, with Comrades making up less than 3 % of his marathons.)

Doctor’ s Orders to Run

One of the myths of marathon running is that it’ s bad for the knees. In Julian’ s case, his bad knees were good news for his marathon running. You see, Julian originally

got into road running as part the rehabilitation process after tearing his cruciate ligament playing soccer for the Wits first team. Julian explains,“ I came from a very strong and competitive soccer environment. After tearing my cruciate ligament, I was introduced to running by a doctor friend of mine.” It seems the prescription was a success.

The running bug quickly took hold and Julian ran his first marathon at Peninsula in February 1990. However, what will surprise many people, is that Julian had a very sedate start to his running career. Over his first 12 years of running, he averaged just six marathons a year. Then in year 13( 2002), he doubled his previous year’ s output to 14, but that was just the start …‘ Mr Slow Burn’ was about to become‘ Mr Raging Furnace.’ Excluding the disrupted COVID years, he has averaged in the mid-40s every year since then!

Julian credits this parabolic increase in his marathon output to the Comrades Marathon increasing its cutoff time to 12 hours in 2003, and says this was the accelerant that fuelled his running fire.“ The 12-hour cut-off led to an explosion of new marathons on the running calendar, and I decided to run as many as I could.” Before that he had‘ only’ run 88 marathons in 13 years. So, Julian’ s meteoric marathon acceleration can be explained in simple economic terms: The supply of marathons increased, and Julian responded in kind by increasing his demand to run them!

A HercJulian Task

Julian is very cautious about his chances at Comrades 2025. He has just one DNF in his 35-year running career, which came at Comrades 2024. The body can only take so much, and Julian has been struggling with a bad hip injury for a couple of years. The injury was made worse when he tried to separate some squabbling baboons at his home in Hartbeespoort and tripped on a loose brick.

Fortunately for his running goals, Julian has an incredibly high pain threshold and is able to apply this fortitude both on and off the road. Although he no longer plays football himself, the ability to overcome mental torture comes in handy, as he is an ardent supporter of both Tottenham Hotspurs and Kaizer Chiefs. I asked him

Images: Dean Venish, Action Photo SA, Stuart Mann

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