Comrades win awaits

POLOKWANE – Rufus Photo (34) has been competing in and training for marathon running for the past six years and he continues to impress with great performances.

Photo was once a soccer goalkeeper and gave up on running in 2004, but local runner Johan van der Merwe convinced Photo to start running again in 2009.

Van der Merwe took Photo under his wing and started to train him for marathons.

Photo competed in his first Comrades marathon in 2012 and ended in an excellent 19th place. In 2013, Photo came ninth and in 2014 he surprised everyone with an outstanding performance were he won fifth place in the Comrades.

Photo said he wanted to win this ultra marathon next year.

“I told myself that I must win at least one Comrades marathon within my first five year of competing,” he said.

Since he has already completed three Comrades marathons, he feels that he is close to his first Comrades victory.

Sponsored by Polokwane Volkswagen, Photo trains every day of the week and runs an average of 48km a day, depending on his running speed.

On February 25 he will be defending his BMW 42km marathon title in Polokwane.

Photo said his plan for the Comrades was to challenge the current Comrades record which is 5:20:49. His own record is 5:35:30.

He said while he did not really have a hero, he did look up to Van der Merwe and thanked Van der Merwe for encouraging him to run and compete again.

“Running is difficult and sometimes painful, but once your passion kicks in, it will cancel out the pain and difficulty,” Photo concluded.