The Mighty Milne

In the 99th running of the Comrades Marathon, billed as 'The Ultimate Human Race’, on on 14 June Alex Milne finished a phenomenal fourth (neatly in his fourth appearance at the event). completing this year's 'Up" run of 85.77km from Durban to Pietermaritzburg (the race switches direction each year) in a PB of 5:22:29.

It was a super-fast race won by South African George Kusche in 5:15:56, with the top five men coming home in under the previous course-record time.  Alex was joined by Adam May, who made his debut in last year's 'Down' run and finished this year's race in 8:03:54; while Andrew Hair came home in 10:14:43.

Since his Comrades debut in 2023 when he finished fifteenth, Alex has strung together a remarkable sequence of results from ninth in 2024 to sixth last year, and now fourth. 

In the lead up to the race, he set an all-time Club Marathon record of 2:11:41 in Seville in February, win the 50km World Championships in New Delhi in a new European record of 2:46:09 in March, helped clinch a bronze medal for the Club in the Southern 12-Stage Relays (also in March) and set a London Marathon PB in April, before heading to South Africa.

A Maths teacher, with a Masters degree in astrophysics, Alex credits his mathematical background with helping to shape his methodical, detailed approach to training, racing, and recovery, since, he says, ‘it teaches you how to think logically, solve problems, and stay calm under pressure. Endurance races are often decided not just by fitness, but by decision-making: pacing correctly, fuelling properly, and adapting when things don’t go to plan’.

Left: Alex with the traditional red rose handed to the top ten finishers