Comrades Marathon
In 1977, when Fordyce first ran the Comrades Marathon, he placed 43rd out of 1,678 entries. He placed 14th in 1978, 3rd in 1979, 2nd in 1980, and was the winner for an unprecedented eight consecutive years from 1981 to 1988; he won it again in 1990. No other runner in the history of the Comrades has achieved this feat. Fordyce also held the record time for the "up" run (Durban to Pietermaritzburg) and his record of 5:24:07 for the "down" run (Pietermaritzburg to Durban) stood for 21 years from 1986 until it was broken in 2007 by Russia's Leonid Shvetsov.
| Year | Position | Time | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | 43 | 06:45:00 | Up |
| 1978 | 14 | 06:11:00 | Down |
| 1979 | 3 | 05:51:15 | Up |
| 1980 | 2 | 05:40:31 | Down |
| 1981 | 1 | 05:37:28 | Up |
| 1982 | 1 | 05:34:22 | Down |
| 1983 | 1 | 05:30:12 | Up |
| 1984 | 1 | 05:27:18 | Down |
| 1985 | 1 | 05:37:01 | Up |
| 1986 | 1 | 05:24:07 | Down |
| 1987 | 1 | 05:37:01 | Up |
| 1988 | 1 | 05:27:42 | Up |
| 1990 | 1 | 05:40:25 | Up |
| 1991 | 328 | 06:57:02 | Down |
| 1994 | 19 | 06:01:54 | Up |
| 1995 | 2232 | 08:42:48 | Down |
| 1996 | 329 | 06:59:30 | Up |
| 2000 | 2691 | 08:41:11 | Up |
| 2001 | 2790 | 08:50:52 | Down |
| 2002 | 4252 | 09:48:46 | Up |
| 2003 | 2784 | 08:53:12 | Down |
| 2004 | 3088 | 09:26:02 | Up |
| 2005 | 2311 | 08:45:20 | Down |
| 2006 | 3596 | 09:41:11 | Up |
| 2007 | 3861 | 09:48:18 | Down |
| 2008 | 3710 | 10:07:33 | Up |
| 2009 | 3818 | 09:48:21 | Down |
| 2010 | 965 | 07:55:03 | Down |
| 2011 | 488 | 07:30:31 | Up |
He has thus completed 29 Comrades Marathons, including the remarkable result of posting identical times in 1985 and 1987. In 2011 he aimed for a silver medal, but missed this by 31 seconds (finishing time of 7 hours 30 minutes 31 seconds).
Read more about this topic: Bruce Fordyce
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