Statistics that Comrades Ultra-marathon (89 km) lovers find interesting, are about the different professions of athletes who completed the race and who the people in their city or town are who have earned their green number in a specific year.
Obtaining your green number in the Comrades is something special. The criteria is difficult. When a runner qualifies for a green number, he or she is allowed to choose an available race number, which then becomes his or her number in perpetuity. In any subsequent Comrades race, that number is worn by its owner on a green, rather than a white, background to give distinction to its owner.
Alternatively, a green number can be gained by winning the Comrades three times, or earning five gold medals (gold medals are given to the first 10 people to finish) or completing it ten times.
A civil engineer from the City of Roses, 39-year-old Thato Litabe will line up for the 2016 Comrades on 29 May with the aim of completing his tenth Comrades. If Litabe’s mission is accomplished, he will not only have completed the Comrades 10 times, but he will also have scored the distinction of doing it in succession, a feat not achieved by many Comrades participants in the past.
It will also be interesting to see how many runners to complete the Comrades this year are in the same profession as this highly qualified civil engineer.
Litabe, who will turn 40 on 4 December, was born and raised in Maseru (Lesotho), where he completed his matric.
From there on there was no stopping Litabe in his quest to become a civil engineer. He completed his degree in 2003 at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. This was not enough. He then enrolled for and achieved his honours degree in Structural Engineering at the University of Pretoria (Tuks), decided to add yet another degree to his resume, and achieved his second honours degree in Transportation Studies.
Voice asked Litabe when and how the appetite for running was triggered: “It was during my years of study in Pretoria. My big brother was already running marathon races, so I decided to start training with him.
“I started running 10km, half marathons (21,1km) and marathons (42,2km) later on, but I couldn’t attempt the Comrades because it was staged on 16 June in those years and that was in the middle of my exams.”
Litabe worked in Pretoria for a couple of years and he ran his first Comrades in 2007 in 11:00,27 – less than a half a second short of breaking the 11-hour barrier. He was later offered a better job opportunity in Bloemfontein and started taking part for Nedbank Bloemfontein Achilles in 2008, the year he recorded a time well below 11 hours (10:40:05).
Litabe’s times over the next eight years showed some ups and downs, but last year he recorded his best time (10:06:24). He makes no secret of it that he aims to go below 10 hours this year.
He is a former chairperson of the Nedbank Bloemfontein Achilles running club and has completed the Comrades in Bloemfontein Achilles colours the last eight years.
Litabe told Voice: “My support team is as ready for the Comrades as I am. I will be taking my wife (Arabangi), son (Tsoanelo, four years) and daughter (Bonolo, eight months) with me as my support squad.”
