Episode 493: Comrades Champion | George Kusche

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The Comrades Marathon is one of the most competitive ultramarathons on the planet. The 99th running of the historic point to point course recently saw both the men’s and women’s course records go down. George Kusche was the men’s and overall winner with a time of 5 hours 15 minutes 56 seconds over the 85.77 km net uphill course.

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Episode Transcript:

Alright, George, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Zach, and thanks for having me. Absolutely. I am excited to chat with you. And, and part of the reason I think too is I'm somewhat mind-boggled by just the way the Comrades Marathon works in general. Not, not because there's anything being done wrong with the event or anything like that, but it seems like in the US, our running news, media, it'll touch on it, but it, it certainly doesn't dive into it nearly as deep as as I think it should with respect to just how competitive, how historic and exciting that race is.

And I've had a hard time pinning down what that wa- what that is, and I think it's, it's maybe some part just we don't have as many maybe American runners with names that are recognizable within the running community that just pop up often enough at that race where it just gets the news cycle that some of the other races do.

But it's something that I always hope will gain momentum here and, and see a lot more attention. So every year I try to follow it as closely as I can and hopefully do a little bit of promoting it when, when I can and chat with guys like you who find themselves on the podium, or in your case, on the top of the podium and breaking a course record.

So I kinda wanna dive into things around just how Comrades Marathon went for you, like your training, things like that, as well as your background, 'cause I think you've got a pretty interesting background that led you to where you are today. So maybe we kinda dive, dive into that a little bit in reverse and, and start with the Comrades Marathon and if you can share with us what was the initial draw for you with respect to saying, "All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this event" in the first place?

Yeah, it's a very good question. So South Africa is a very interesting case study in the popularity of ultra running. As far as I know, there is no other country on Earth that places so much emphasis on ultra running, and especially the Comrades Marathon. It's by far the biggest race in terms of number of participants and prize money and just general media coverage in South Africa.

And it's, it's such a big race that it's, it's culturally significant in the sense that all my friends that couldn't care less about running, they know exactly when Comrades is. They, they even watch it, some of them and they're, they're aware of what happened. So it's, it's very nice to compete at such a race because, because it's so recognizable.

In South Africa, if you run a 10K in an extremely fast time, almost no one will recognize your achievement, but if you get top 10 at the Comrades, the whole country would probably know about that. Yeah. That's actually funny you said that, 'cause I was gonna ask you about that.

I remember when I was at Comrades in, in 2015, there was two things that stood out to me talking to the locals and the media there, and one was i- in South Africa, if you haven't done Comrades, just like you said, it doesn't matter what your other accomplishments are, you're not a runner yet. And, and the other one was just the level of preparation that they give it, where I don't know how common this is just wholesale with the teams and the individuals that really focus on Comrades, but I do remember a theme of basically saying the timeline to start preparing for Comrades is eight months out, is when they start kinda thinking about what are they gonna do from a racing calendar standpoint, a training philosophy that basically spans that duration of time to get them to the point where when they get to Comrades, they feel like they've got all their tools available to them on race day.

Yes, exactly. If I take myself and it-- as an example, I did, I did my first Comrades last year so June 2025. And then I was so motivated by that that I went back to the drawing board after that. I got 12th and I started preparing, as soon as I could after the race. I recovered.

Unfortunately, I got an ITB issue, but as soon as I recovered from that, I planned my year around Comrades. So every race I did, although I did some big races, it was all in preparation w- to Comrades in mind. So yeah, we, we basically prepare our whole racing calendar around Comrades, and you can see that in the local races as well.

So you need to qualify for the Comrades. Even if you're a social runner, you need to run a certain time, almost I guess, the Boston Marathon. And so most races in South Africa advertise themselves as a Comrades qualifier. That's how significant the Comrades are. So most people do these races to qualify for the Comrades.

Yeah, and th- that's how I usually describe Comrades to people here in the US that are not very familiar with it, and I just tell them, "Imagine if the Boston Marathon was an ultramarathon or essentially twice as long as it is, and think of all the energy that we give that race and just the preparation and the, the qualifying races and things like that."

That's, that's how South Africa views comrades, and I think they usually have a little bit of a comparator that they can wrap their head around then. And yeah, so you have-- How long have you lived in South Africa now? Yeah, I was born and raised here. So I was born in the capital and then raised in a kind of rural town in the eastern part of South Africa.

And then went to high school back in the capital, Pretoria and then I went to the US to study for five years after that. Okay. That, that must have... That was just a gap in my knowledge base, I guess. I didn't think that you had started out in South Africa. I thought maybe you went there after. But from what I was gathering is I, I, I saw that you had done some you were in the university system here in the United States.

So if I'm not mistaken, you went to Nebraska for a few years, and then eventually went to Northern Arizona, Ze- Northern Arizona University and ran with Mike Smith for a bit. Yes, exactly. So I spent three years at Nebraska Lincoln, and I finished my undergrad degree there. And then I, when I graduated, I did my master's in statistics at NAU under Coach Smith as my coach.

Yeah. So you were a runner from, from early on. Was there any draw to the running side of things when you went into the collegiate system or was it mostly academic and running was kind of part of the process? Yeah. So I mean, running gave me the scholarship to go to the States in the first place of which I would not have been able to go if I didn't get that running scholarship.

But yeah, running has been a large part of my life, I'd say since high school. When I went to high school, initially I wanted to play rugby, which is our most popular sport for now in South Africa. But the s- school was so big that I ended up getting a very bad team. So I didn't get the first or the A team.

I got an F team, which is not very good. And so my competitive side kicked in and I, I, I quit rugby. And I started running more seriously, and then I competed in 800 meter events. And so right throughout high school, I mostly did 800. And I did quite well. I managed to run 1:47 as a 17-year-old which at the time was a pretty good time.

But then after school into the NCAA system, I moved up in distance gradually Yeah. Yeah, I did see that you had run a 1:47 800, and I imagine doing that as a 17-year-old is a pretty good signal to the universities to recruit you and see if they can get you to run for them. That's exciting.

So when, when you get into college and start competing there, eventually you graduate and you have to decide what you're gonna do next. At that point, was that where you decided you're gonna focus on your career before running, or was there an attempt to go pro after college or anything like that?

Yeah. So I've always, since a youn- since I was a young boy, I've always dreamed about going pro and running full time. And so I, I hoped that I could get a pro contract after college, but I just didn't quite run well enough. I ran decently at Nebraska, and then I got some mono in my final year.

And that took away a lot of the enjoyment out of running, because I was, I thought that I was unfit, and I tried just working harder, and I just ended up getting more fatigued. And so that took a lot of enjoyment out of the sport. Luckily, I went to NAU, and it's obviously such a great team culture, and Coach Smith is an incredible coach, so I, I, I regained that enjoyment that you should find in running.

But yeah, I just didn't quite run well enough to justify a pro contract. And so I came back to South Africa not knowing why I would continue. So I got a job, started a grown-up life. And it's during that 10-month period where, when I stopped running, I thought to myself, "Surely there's more to life than this," and I started running again, with the knowledge that running is tough, but not running is far tougher. So, yeah, I started running again and slowly but surely found my way back into the sport. Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things, I think once it becomes part of your life, it becomes... Or I describe it this way sometimes, it's like you can be in a really difficult training cycle and start losing your desire to do it, but as soon as you get injured and you can't decide to not do it, that's when you start to recognize how much you enjoy it.

So, yeah, exactly ... take it away and then you re- recognize it. I, I was, I was doing some listening and reading on your story, too, and, and I, I think there was a gap in between your collegiate career and now your, your comrades and marathoning career where you, you put on quite a bit of weight. I think it was, like, 21 kilograms or something like that.

But the way they described it was that it wasn't just you sitting on the couch necessarily putting on a bunch of weight, you were doing some strength work. I'm just kinda curious to hear about that phase of your life, too. Yes. So I was running for such a long time that when I stopped running, I told myself, "Well, what can I do fitness-wise that I couldn't do when I was running?"

And lifting heavy weights and getting swole was obviously one of the things I couldn't do when I was running. So yes, I did gain a lot of weight. I think I weighed 86 kilograms. I'm not sure what that is in pounds. But quite heavy. It was mostly... Not, not mostly. It was muscle, 'cause I was lifting heavy, but it was also a lot of fat as well.

But I was quite strong, I'd say, at the peak of my non-running career. I, I find that really interesting too, because when you get into mar- or ultra-marathon running, there is a component or a variable that I think gets a lot of interest, especially nowadays, that is a little bit of a differentiator maybe from some of the standard distances and even the marathon now that guys are running it two hours, where there's like this durability component where, yes, you still have to be, especially for a race like Comrades, you still have to be quite fast and efficient with your running to do well there.

But you also have to be able to sustain what would be a relatively slow pace compared to what you would do in a marathon or, or faster for longer durations of time, five, six hours. So when I see situations like that come where you kinda put on what would be an extreme amount of weight for a, for a distance runner and then kinda cut back down, I do wonder about how that maybe feeds into that durability component with respect to just your ability to sustain some of that pounding and training and then ultimately in the race itself.

I, I think of guys like Alexander Sorokin as well, who went on a, a couple year tear, broke basically every record from the, from the 100K up to the 24-hour, and he kinda had a, a similar situation where he had a, a competitive rowing career at, at university, then kinda stepped away from all of that, gained a ton of weight, and then started running to kinda get back into shape.

And then, he, he sort of had a, had that similar... I wouldn't say it was a strategy. I don't think he did it intentionally, but yours sounded way more deliberate. But he-- I know he, he's, he certainly has shown the durability side of the sport, where you can stay strong and run fast miles at the end of the race, even when you've got that fatigue in your legs.

Yes, exactly. So I mean, I averaged 5:51 per mile, I think, if I'm not mistaken, for the Comrades. And obviously for an elite marathoner, 5:51 is a very slow pace. I'd say it's not even a steady state pace. It's, it's an easy, it's an easy run. But the problem is, can you do that for 54 miles, yeah, consecutively?

And can you do that with 6,000 feet elevation gain? Now, the first time I looked at Comrades stats before I decided to do it, I looked at the pace and I told myself, "Well, that's not that fast." It's a long run pace in, in collegiate, in the NCAA systems. I think most distance runners average about 5:50 to 6:10, give or take, per mile for their long runs.

And certainly if you're an elite marathoner, that should be a very easy jog for you. But doing that for such a long period of time, as I said, it's tough. It-- Your body there's other, other factors that play a role such as you said, durability, which is very, very important Yeah. Yeah, and I think maybe that's a good spot to jump in, 'cause I do want to talk to you about your training and your preparation, and let's, let's start maybe with the first time you did Comrades.

So you were doing a down year. I think, if I remember correctly, I ran 5:41. You were pretty new to it at that point, I imagine. So were you already putting into place some components that you thought were more specific to Comrades, or was that race more just, "Hey, let's get a, let's get a result on the board here and see how things go, and come back the next year with a little bit more of a refined process"?

Yeah, so, so let's put it in a timeline. I stopped running at the start of 2023 all the way through October 2023. And so when I started jogging in November 2023, I called it jogging, but it was like walking and jogging. I obviously gained a lot of weight and I wasn't very fit from 10 months of being relatively sedentary.

And so 2024 I s- got into road running again. So nothing world-class just, maybe some serious amateur times. I think I ran a 64-minute half, which is a good amateur time. And so at the end of 2024 I did my first marathon, which was the Cape Town Marathon in October 2024, and I ran 220.

Which at the time was as good as I could have run. But it was fast enough to qualify for the lead field of the Comrades Marathon. And so I told myself, I'm enjoying this running, I'm going to do it regardless of how well I perform or not, 'cause I just consider this my, my passion. I got injured at the start of 2025 in a, in a half marathon race.

I tore my ankle ligaments when I twisted my ankle. So that took about four weeks, I'd say, to recover from doing nothing 'cause you can't run obviously with torn ligaments. So I'd say at the end of February, start of March 2025, I started preparing for the June 2025 Comrades. And as soon as I ran again, it went as well as I, as it could have gone.

But obviously it's a limited amount of time to prepare. And so I, I, I coached myself and I, I did everything I thought was necessary to prepare, but I had limited experience with ultras. It was, it d- it's, yeah, up until that point, I've never done an ultra. And so I think I prepared too much as a track or shorter distance athlete.

I did a lot of threshold running. I did shorter long runs at a faster pace. So none of these things are necessarily bad, but I think I've, it failed to prepare me adequately for the demands of a down Comrades. But nonetheless, I finished 12th and I learned a lot especially about the durability component.

I think I was very fit at that time, like aerobically fit, but I wasn't durable enough because the last 20 to 25 kilometers, so 12 to, let's call it 12 to 15 miles, was pure agony. My legs were shot. I was very-- I was struggling so it wasn't very fun. But nonetheless, after that I was very motivated and I started preparing for the 2026 edition soon after Yeah.

I, I have to imagine, like, when you look at the Comrade, Comrades Marathon and how that usually plays out, it's just one of those races where there are very few events that are more difficult to get right the first time around. So, I think one of the more fun storylines to follow with Comrades is if you actually branch out beyond a year and look at people who are returning for their second year that have that experience - that did, that did well the first time around, but maybe not quite to their potential because they're, they're looking to make a little bit of an upgrade in a lot of cases, especially if they had a situation like yourself where your timeline was maybe a little shorter than you would've liked due to an injury going in.

So, I have to imagine you were pretty excited about 12th place and what that meant with respect to where your possibility was, coming back. I'd like to kinda hear about just the full training approach that you put into place once you recovered from that and got back into running.

One of my interests-- One of the things I find the most interesting about training for these ultra-runnings is just the types of workouts people are doing, and then the order of operations of when they're doing them. Because I-- personally, I think short interval VO2 max work is important, threshold work is important, long runs are important, the traditional stuff, right?

But then, like we've been talking about, that durability component, when you start to peak, just becomes something that is gonna really move the needle on performance due to its specificity. And I'm just curious about how you place all those components from the start of a training plan to a race like Comrades that you had in 2026.

Yes. So I think my training, I think it's quite unconventional, at least to traditional South African understanding of Comrades preparation. So I took a very long-term approach. I started preparing, as I said, for the Comrades soon after the previous edition. And now one of the cornerstones of my training program I'd say was using half marathons as a, as training runs.

So I run them in the vicinity of 65 to 66 minutes and I do them quite often. And if I can't do them in a race, I do like a 12-mile tempo, which is just short of a half marathon. And the philosophy of that is I, I train alone, and so doing those race-type efforts is a great way for me to get a harder threshold workout in because you can sustain threshold pace for, for an hour and five minutes.

It's very, very possible. So that was one key part of it. Now, high volume training is also another key part of it. I've slowly built my volume f-from last year all the way to this year's Comrades and I did it very sustainably over time. So even though my peak mileage before this year's Comrades was quite high, and some people might have said too high, I built it up sustainably over time.

So it wasn't too high. I could absorb it and become a stronger athlete. And I completely agree with you. I never moved away from the American or NCAA system approach of using threshold work. I did threshold work at least once a week. Now the difference that came in preparing specifically for the demands of Comrades is that the second workout I did was almost always some kind of hill workout where I wasn't focused-- I wasn't focusing on the pace at all.

I was focusing on doing as much damage to my legs as possible. So an example of that is I, I, I found a very steep hill close by my home in Pretoria, South Africa and I basically went for 25 to, 31 miles so 40 to 50 kilometers, I ran up and down that hill. So it's a very boring workout. I jogged it up eight minutes a mile and jogged it down eight minutes a mile.

And I found that over time I got stronger and I could jog up that hill with a much lower heart rate and relative effort than I could a couple of months previous to that, and that gave me great confidence. And then another f-aspect of my training is the long run. Obviously you can't move away from that if you want to prepare adequately for a 54-mile race.

And so I'd say I experimented with very long runs. So I did a 43-and-a-half mile run, which is a 70 kilometer run, but that was too far for me. I struggled to recover in time. I don't like feeling broken. I want to build, continuously build. So I'd say my sweet spot this year was a 35-mile run.

Each week I did a 35-mile run at about 6:25 per mile. And then at that pace, my heart rate was about 130 Interesting. So what, do you, do you remember about when you started implementing the, the hill repeats? March. So I did a marathon- In March? Yeah, I did it, on 15th Feb, Feb this year, I did a marathon and I ran 2:13.

But it's, it's not an ideal, it wasn't an ideal circumstances. There was a headwind, and I ran completely solo from about a mile in. But I ran 2:13, and I was quite happy with that. And then as soon as I recovered, let's say a week or two after that race, I started with the hill workout.

Interesting. Yeah. And then was that thereon forward that you started doing the 35-mile long runs every week as well? Or did that start sooner? Yeah. No, it was about the same time. I started with a 31-miler, and then 35, and then 37 and a half and then back to 35. Interesting. Yeah. I, I, I love what you're saying, too, 'cause I, I think there i- there, I mean, there certainly is that point where the long run gets long enough where from a physiological standpoint, you're not doing yourself a whole lot of favors by staying out there, but physically, you are potentially stealing from tomorrow.

And to some degree, you kinda gotta find where that pinch point is for yourself and, and stay below it so that you can continually train the way you did. But I find that just to be an interesting topic within the ultra-running world, too, just because especially once you start getting up to some of these longer races that are, like, 100 miles and beyond, the draw to go out and do these long training sessions just gets greater and greater.

And I think there's a place for them, but you do gotta be careful because the opportunity cost there oftentimes is future training if you're doing too much of that. So it sounds like you found that that 35 number allowed you to get a pretty big bolus of volume and stimulus that would be specific to comrades.

Probably enough cumulative fatigue from the workouts you were doing prior in the week where the durability aspect was gonna be at play but not so much that you couldn't repeat it. And it's just interesting to see 'cause now I, I always wonder, like, how many more of those 31 to 35 mile long runs were you able to do because you did it that way versus trying to force a, another 70K run or something like that.

Exactly. Yeah, I believe in, in the benefit of long-term consistency much more than I d- believe in, proving to myself that I can run very far well, every now and then, so I, I gain great confidence from hitting good workouts, not extreme workouts, but good workouts week in, week out, and then topping it off with a good, solid long run over the weekend.

And so that week I did the 43 and a half mile run, so the 70-kilometer run I also did a 66-minute half-marathon two days before. So that was by far my highest volume week. I think I hit 161 miles for that week. It was a great week, great workouts, great volume, but the week after that, I struggled.

And so I told myself You know, I'd rather be more consistent than be broken down from a, from a big run, long run like this. And so I t- that following weekend, I only did 31 miles for my long run, and then 35 the week after that, and then everything stabilized. I ran consistently about 160 miles a week.

And I found that 35 miles was my sweet spot. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wanna back up a little bit to the 2:13 marathon because obviously, I mean, a 2:13 marathon is, is really fast and, relative to what it shows with respect to what your potential is at Comrades, that you had to have been pretty excited about that.

Was, was the, was the training you were doing prior to the specific work for Comrades pretty suggestive that you were in that sort of shape, and then it was just about pacing it the way that the day presented for you? Or was that a little bit more of a surprise to you than you thought going in?

I knew I was in good shape because I did a half marathon in January. Yeah, January 11th. I did a half marathon at altitude in Johannesburg. I think it's about 5,000 feet altitude give or take, and I ran a 65 minute 30. But it was also extremely hilly. I think we gained 600, no, 600 meters. Yeah, so it's quite hilly.

I think in feet it was 1,500 feet of elevation gain for that 13.1 miles. So it was a very hilly high altitude half marathon, and I won the race and of course record 65:31, I think. So that was a good indication that I was in good shape. But the funny thing is up until that point, I haven't been doing any specific workouts, not even threshold.

Now the main reason for that was in December everybody goes on holiday 'cause it's our summer. And the track I used to do the threshold was closed. And so I didn't have access to a suitable place to do threshold or track workouts. And the area I live in is extremely hilly as well, so trying to do a threshold workout here is just very tough.

It's not just the uphills that are tough, but the downhills are so steep that you don't want to be running fast. So you could argue that it's the perfect Comrades environment, but I don't think it's ideal for a marathon because as I said, I just couldn't sharpen up. So leading up to that 2:13, I haven't been doing much threshold work or sharpening VO2 max work, but I used those half marathons, I think I did two before that one.

And I used that to sharpen up, and run. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It, it also, it s- seems like things were lining up well for you. And then day of the race, or I shouldn't say day of the race, I know Comrades is a bit of a festival in the days leading up to it and a lot of pre-race interviews and things like that.

So when you were going through all of that, after reflecting on the training, did you have an idea in your mind of what type of time you were gonna be looking for that day and that you'd be going for, for the win? Or was it a little bit more up in the air in your mind at that point? Yes. So leading up to the Comrades, I became obsessed with the process.

Obviously, the type of training that the Comrades demand is, is very challenging. It's high volume, lots of elevation gain. So the process is difficult enough, so I got really, really obsessed with nailing the process, and I got extremely or completely detached from the outcome. And so I heard people talking about me possibly winning or doing well, and I, I really ignored it because it didn't add value to the process.

And so I honestly can tell you that, everybody thinks about winning, but I really tried not, not speaking about winning. Even at home my wife and I, we never framed it in a way that I need to win or I'm going to win. We framed it in a way that we're proud of the process and proud of the work we're putting in, and we're excited to see what that can lead to.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I know you've got a full-time job and a family, so you're doing all of this i-in combination with all of that. So, I always find that a fascinating story just in general where, you're probably putting in 15, 20 hours of work some weeks when you're getting into the thick of things, and then you're also working a full-time job, trying to make sure that you're doing all the things that are required to be a member of the family and all that sort of stuff.

So i-in one respect, it's like that's a difficult needle to thread between recovery and stress and all that stuff. But on the other hand, it does probably give you a little bit of a peace of mind that this isn't something where your livelihood is necessarily dependent on it. You can kinda relieve yourself of that burden to some degre- some degree and, and let the outcome find itself Yes, 100%.

Yeah, my, my full-time job, it gives us financial stability. So I, I d- I didn't have to make risky decisions or take unnecessary risks because we are stable. That being said, I really believe running is my calling in life. And I would love to run full time. So as soon as I can find a...

Hopefully, if I can find a suitable deal I would love to explore that avenue. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I, I think it is something where we are starting to see more, more brands. Is, it, it may be even more unique in South Africa than it is just globally that, that, but they are looking at the ultrarunning world a little bit more holistically than what made it popular in this last wave of ultrarunning notoriety, and some of these kind of flat, more runnable stuff is starting to get attention.

I know Adidas was doing some stuff with, with a few athletes that have been focused more on the shorter side of the ultrarunning world and the more runnable stuff, like chasing records, podiums, and things like that at events like Comrades. And, and u- usually when you see one brand start thinking like that, then it's only a matter of time before others start getting in on the fun.

So, hopefully there's a nice, nice setup for you to, to allow you to nav- navigate things with the, the training and racing being front and center for from the, the economic side of all of that. But with all that said, Comrades is one race once per year, so there is opportunity to do other things outside of that.

Do you have a direction you think you wanna go with your time spent either in the early stages of Comrades prep or outside of the Comrades cycle? Yes. So that 2:13 gave me a kind of confidence that I can maybe run a fast marathon in the vicinity of 2:10, I'd say, or faster even, so sub 2:10. And so I believe I can train as a marathoner year-round and then ramp up my comrades training at, in March of, of the year.

I, I, I feel like if you do that, you have a good solid base to work from, and then you can target that specificity starting in March. So that's the philosophy I've developed. And so that gives me the opportunity to run two fast marathons a year. February, January, February of the year, and then October to December I think I can target another fast marathon.

Yeah. Yeah. Have you, have you thought of any ones that you're thinking about doing at this point, or is that still in the process? Yeah, I think I might do the Amsterdam Marathon in October. Cool. Yeah, that'd be fun. A- and you think that a Boston Marathon's probably a little too close to Comrades to use that as a, as a, probably certainly for a focused race, but the course I think is interesting with respect to kind of the demands of Comrades versus some of the flatter ul- or flatter marathons.

When is the Boston Marathon? It's usually around Ap- second half of April. Oh. Yeah, I think it might be a bit close, 'cause that's when you want to s- really ramp up comrades training. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it, it probably adds a little bit of a risk factor there, where you're, you're stepping on some of those toes.

I, I did see... Are you familiar with Charlie Lawrence? He was sixth this year at- Yes, he, he got sixth there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. He's someone that I followed for a bit because I would say, here in the US, he's one of the early guys who really just kinda came into the sport of ultramarathon, who then said, "Hey, I wanna really try to professionally target things like, the marathon, the 50K, the 100K," and then, and Comrades fits within that model, world championship stuff at those type of distances, and then maybe move up after he's extracted his potential within those ones.

And his model this year was to do Boston and then Comrades, but I don't think that Boston was necessarily a race that he peaked for the same way that maybe you're trying to do with respect to the marathons that you do during the year. So I do think that maybe with the way that you're looking at it, you probably want a little bit more time between, say, that last marathon and the block of time you have for comrades.

Yes, I've, I've found that I take longer than other athletes to recover from hard racing efforts. So like that February marathon I did, it took me about a month after that just to feel like I can run normally again. So if I do a marathon in April, I estimate that I would feel okay again, a month after that in May, and then it's almost time to taper again for comrades.

So I think it's a little bit too close for my liking. But yeah, I've, I've- I've, I've met Charlie when he was, when he was here for the Comrades and yeah, I think he did extremely well for his debut Comrades marathon Yeah. Yeah, I think he was the... It was-- It might have been the fastest US debut. It-- Yeah, it was the fastest US debut but I think it might have also been one of the highest, one of the highest debut positions too.

So I think he's probably looking at that as an indication that all options are on the table for, for 2027. So, maybe you guys will have a nice throw down on those final kilometers if all goes according to plan for both of you. Yeah, and I think he went to Minnesota, if I'm not mistaken, and I went to Nebraska, so it might be a little Big Ten reunion.

Long, long time rivalry, yeah. Yeah. I did wanna ask you with, with respect 'cause, like, when you're doing comrades as a focal point in your schedule, you do have that alternating year where this year was an up year and next year will be a down year. So, I mean, the course is quite hilly, and when you switch directions, you get a bigger emphasis on the down or the up depending on which one it is.

Are you viewing the downhill as any... Are you gonna prepare differently, I guess, for the downhill than you did for the uphill given that now the, the bigger demand is maybe on that eccentric loading than it would've been for a year like this? Yeah, 100%. I- I honestly view the up and the down as two separate races completely different from each other.

For the up, I believe in focusing on, on the threshold work I've done a lot more because obviously aerobically it's more taxing running up a hill than down a hill. So I believe, the down you need to focus more on that eccentric load, as you mentioned and less on your threshold pace because, and this isn't scientifically backed, this is my own hypothesis.

When we're running downhill from 60 kilometers in the race, none of our heart rates are going to spike into 170 or 180. What, what keeps you from going faster is your legs start to tire from all that pounding. And so I- I'll, I'll maybe tone down the threshold work a bit from April, March or April next year, and maybe focus a bit more on just getting my legs toughened up for the down run.

Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that'll be fun to see. I think it's always cool to see the little, the little variances with that format where they switch every other year like that. So, yeah. Do-- Have you given... I have to ask since, it's kinda part of the culture, is Two Oceans something that you would, you've got your eye on as an event you'd ever target too?

I would love to. It's a 35-mile race, which is coincidentally obviously the same length as my sweet spot for long runs. And I do think that distance suits me well. I am aerobically very, very strong. And I am very strong on uphills as well. And the Two Oceans race, it's fast enough, it's short enough, first of all, to be still quite fast.

I think you can average 5:20 per mile which is obviously significantly faster than 5:50 for the Comrades. And so I think that pace suits me well, and then it's obviously very hilly in the second half as well which I also think would play to my advantage. Now, the only drawback is that it's so close to the Comrades so I'm not sure I'll do it next year.

But over my career I would like to do it at least once. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe if you break the course record for the down year in Comrades, you'll have an excuse to take a break and target that. Yeah, maybe. Although you could, you could make the argument that that's just more incentive to keep coming back if it becomes...

You become South African royalty at that point, so. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Bruce Fordyce, I don't know if you know him but he won it nine times, which is incredible. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it, it is interesting just the way that that culture does work around it, too, where, I mean, athletes and people focusing on pro sports and things like that, they do have that, that, that, that question to answer essentially, which is, what do I do with my, with my time and my energy and my opportunities when I'm no longer, in this case, running fast races?

And, that timeline comes up much quicker than a typical career would. So, you gotta figure out, does this sport have something for me that I can do occupationally in a lot of cases? And I do think Comrades is interesting like that, where they do tend to really value their prior champions and, hopefully, have opportunities for them, too, to be able to still engage with the sport in a meaningful way that they can do post-career.

Yes, that hits the nail on the head. I would love to, to use, the p- the plat- the potential platform that I built to give back. So running has obviously transformed my life. I even met my wife through running. So I'm very, very grateful for the impact that running has made in my life.

And if I can somehow use that, just to help other young kids in South Africa and, and there are many people in South Africa struggling if I can help them with shoes or, or structure or anything, it would be, it would be very meaningful. And so coaching is something I'm thinking about as well.

I have no doubt that I would like to be part of the running world in some way for the rest of my life, and so coaching is a great way to do that. I'm thinking about starting an online coaching platform and maybe coaching a few athletes in person as well.

Yeah. Yeah, I would imagine in South Africa, having a former Comrades champion on the signature line is probably a pretty good vetting process for a lot of the people looking for coaches. Yeah, I hope so. Awesome. No, I think I think you have a really interesting strategy and training philosophy that would be very useful for people, so, hopefully you'll get quite a bit of interest with that.

And maybe some people who are thinking about doing Comrades here in the United States who are gonna listen to this podcast will, will reach out to you and say, "Hey, can you work with me?" Oh, I would welcome them, and I would love to help them. Awesome. Awesome, yeah, yeah. I do have one other question for you too, 'cause right now you are working full time aspirations to trend a little more towards the full-time athlete route.

Do you think that you would be, like, or obviously this isn't maybe 100% your decision, but if you got that contract to be more professional with respect to training, is that something you'd think you'd step away full time from work, or is it something where you'd like to kinda maintain a part-time spot or something like that?

Or I guess maybe you'd just transition that time over to coaching. Yeah yeah, I'd have to make a decision when it comes to that. I do enjoy my, my, my, my job at the moment. I work for a very supportive company and so it's not a case of me trying to, g- g- lose my job, as soon as I can land a pro contract.

I enjoy my job. I do get a lot of meaning out of it. But yeah, if the time comes where I can make a decision and I have the opportunity to run full time, I'll have to evaluate it, and speak to my wife. But I do think the lifestyle of a professional athlete is very enjoyable and meaningful and I can see myself pursuing that Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting 'cause I think those opportunities have gotten just more available in the ultrarunning space to do the full-time athlete approach, and, I mean, you see different, different scenarios. I know it's in the news still at this point 'cause the Western States 100 just happened, and Vincent Boullard won that.

And he's just an interesting story because he was a full-time employee for Hoka. He was in their product design department, or footwear design, and he did UTMB as a non-athlete. I mean, he still wore all the Hoka stuff, and the shoes he wore were probably designed by him, so it made sense that he was gonna wear them.

But he ended up winning UTMB, which is one of the most competitive 100-milers in, in the, in the world, and that kind of put him in a position now where sponsorships were available. And he, rather than stepping away from his job, I think he just worked with Hoka, and they, now he works part-time for them and still helps out with that.

But he's, his main focus is the training and racing side of things, and then he just won Western States and broke the course record there this last weekend. So, y- y- I do wonder if he'll continue to do that or if it's something that he'll take as a sign to be 100% all-in on, on, on pro training.

It's just a, it's just one of those things where we were talking about before, where sometimes I think the distraction away from it can be welcomed at times, but also you have to balance all that goes into properly preparing and not leaving any stones unturned. Yeah. When you pursue becoming a full-time athlete, I think you still need to be cognizant of the fact that it's not just all about running.

You need to, for example, build a brand and you need to see what else you can do to advance your career and not just look at the performance aspect. Now, the performance aspect will always be the most important aspect to a, to being a full-time athlete. But there are other, let's say, avenues you can explore to make your, to bolster your career and hedge yourself against bad performances or injuries and things like that.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the storytelling side of the sport now, I think has gotten, I mean, to the point where you have a whole influencer community that isn't necessarily-- They're not, they're not putting up elite performances. They may be putting up big performances for their own journey, but sometimes it's just about telling that story that kind of gets enough eyeballs on you where now, yeah, you do have a whole nother angle.

It's just a different world for athletes nowadays when you're not necessarily reliant on showing up in a magazine article. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Well, George, I'm excited to see kinda how things go for you coming up here. I appreciate you taking some time to come on the podcast.

I- if you don't mind, if you don't mind sharing with people where they can find you, like social media, websites, or anything like that, and you wanna share, I'll, I can be sure to link that in the show notes. Okay. Yeah, so it's, it's Kusche George on Instagram, so K-U-S-C-H-E and then George. I could spell it in America.

So yeah, that's, that's my main... Instagram's our main social media account, but I'm also completely public on Strava, so I post all my training there. Anyone can go view it. And so if you just look up my name, George Kusche, on Strava, you can, you can follow my training journey as well. Awesome. I love it when the Strava stays public.

There's so much to learn from guys like yourself, so we appreciate you keeping that up there. Yeah, I mean, I love looking into training and reading up about it, so it would be hypocritical for me to make my account private. Awesome. Well, thanks again, George. It was a blast to chat.

Thank you, Zach. Appreciate it