Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 67, February 2015 | Page 20

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Don with training partners Ferd
Le Grange and Dave Levick

LIVING LEGEND

the lead on Chapman’s Peak and won in a course record 3:25:12. A few
months later he was 10th at Comrades in 6:15:05, earning a gold medal.

Cruising to Two Oceans victory in 1972

Having gone from elite mountain climber to top ultramarathoner in the early 70s, Don Hartley even had a tilt at
winning the Comrades, but then he gave up serious racing to
pursue a career in art. – BY SEAN FALCONER

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round the 60km mark of the 1974 Comrades, two-time Two

Oceans winner Don Hartley of Cape Town was lying second and

looking like a possible winner, but then, suddenly, he sat

down beside the road, just before a bridge. “I had had

enough, I suppose because it was so cold that year. My father
was seconding me and he couldn’t believe it, because the race leader
was also sitting – on the other side of the same bridge!” recounts Don.
“However, eventual winner Derek Preiss and the boys soon came past,
I wished them well, and I eventually finished 13th. Maybe if I didn’t get
injured in 1973, I might have won it…”

ROOKIE RUNNER
By his own admission, Don was a bit naïve when he joined Celtic Harriers
in 1971 and announced he wanted to run Comrades, having recently run
8km from Fish Hoek to Kommetjie and back. “I thought it was impressive,
but I ۙ]