2 MIN 09 SECONDS
RACE REPORT
Spartan Baby Badass Ultra( SBBU) 2025
Fifty-six runners taking on the challenge of their lives: a 100 km or 100 mile( just over 160 km) challenge, to be completed in 24 hours. It seems a little mad, doesn’ t it? Well, this is the fourth time we hosted our annual SBBU— and believe me, we’ re just getting started. By Robbie Riccardi
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few hours before the start of the fourth edition of the now-annual SBBU, runners set up their sleeping cots, camping chairs and running paraphernalia in the pool room of the Italian Sporting Club in Bedfordview. This served as our barracks for the event; each runner was assigned quarters for the race’ s duration.
Then, at exactly 10am on Saturday 3 May 2025, 56 runners took to the roads of Bedfordview for the start of the 2025 edition. This is an event like no other: runners take on a 24-hour event in which challengers choose between two different distances— one hundred kilometers or 100 miles— and run a specified distance on the hour, every hour, for 24 hours, to reach their goal.
This year we had: 47 x 100-km runners 9 x 100-mile runners.
Only two runners have ever completed the 100-miler: Warmonger and Crazy Hazy. Both failed to complete this year’ s event. Crazy Hazy made loop 3 of the race before being forced to withdraw for medical reasons. Warmonger ran with his young son, Caleb, to the marathon mark before both withdrew from the race before midnight.
Any runners unable to complete their loop within the hour or not make it to the start of the next loop were disqualified. They then had to stand to attention as Taps( the official bugle call of the US Army, played at the end of a military day as well as during military funerals and official memorial events) played over the speakers.
Sleep deprivation, cold weather, and fatigue proved to be significant obstacles. The temperature dropped overnight into single digits. This year’ s SBBU was as brutal as all those before it: of the 56 who started, only 41 would finish, making for a 73 % success rate.
Forty of the 47 100 km runners finished. Only one of the nine 100-mile runners managed to complete 100 miles: Shakes( aka Thabang Maimane), who became only the third successful runner in this category.
At the time of this report, the race had raised R760k. However, it is expected that a few additional, confirmed donations will nudge this up to the R1 million mark in the next few weeks. All money raised will go to the CHOC Cows, an organisation that assists children fighting cancer.
To date, the SBBU, a CHOC Cows-powered ultra-distance fundraising event, has raised just under R2 million for CHOC. Previous editions of the SBBU have been hosted in Cape Town and at Treverton College in the Midlands. If you would like to donate, please click on the link below, and if you would like to follow us, check out our links below. We can’ t wait to welcome you … if you are brave enough to join us!
Donate here: https:// www. givengain. com / project / the-cows-raising-fundsfor-the-cows-95974 SBBU Instagram: https:// www. instagram. com / sbbu _ official / SBBU Website: https:// www. sbbu. co. za /
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