Andy stuns Africa at ‘Ultimate Human Race’

Forden’s Andy Davies has finished in a remarkable fifth spot at the legendary Comrades Marathon in South Africa on Sunday.

The race – tagged the Ultimate Human Race - is one of the world’s most famous endurance events, held over 86km in and around Durban, and Davies ran a superb second half to move through the field and into fifth.

His finishing time of five hours and 30.46 seconds was just over five minutes behind winner Piet Wiersma from The Netherlands, with three African runners taking the next three places ahead of Davies. The starting field consisted of over 20,000 runners.

“Really happy with the finish,” Andy told us last night from South Africa. “It’s definitely up there with the best results for me. It’s a bit of the unknown as it’s not a set distance, so times are a bit irrelevant. Getting into top 10 is the big thing, so to get inside that and fifth, I’m buzzing!

“The distance was something else. I have never been that far before. It was bonkers, after 36k that I had 50km to go! I was trying to get my head around it but kept going.”

Andy has been training all year for the event, so not surprisingly he said he has “absolutely nothing planned for once” but we can expect to see him doing some trail and mountain running through the summer.

Comrade Marathon top five

1. Piet Wiersma (The Netherlands) — 5:25:00
2. Dan Moselakwe (South Africa) — 5:25:45
3. Degefa Yohannese Lafebo (Ethiopia) — 5:27:48
4. Joseph Manyedi (South Africa) — 5:28:33
5. Andrew Davies (Wales) — 5:30:46