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2025 edition held Nov 29, 2025
Next edition expected
Usually November
2026 date not yet confirmed
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The Soweto Marathon, nicknamed the People's Race, is a road race through the township of Soweto in Johannesburg, first run in 1991. It is held on a Sunday in November and offers a 42.2 km marathon, a 21.1 km half marathon and a 10 km run on the same day. The race starts at the Nasrec Expo Centre and finishes at FNB Stadium. From Nasrec the route comes down Rand Show Road into the township, and by the 10 km mark it passes Walter Sisulu Square. Most of the hard work comes after halfway: the second half of the course winds and climbs through Vilakazi Street, the street that was home to both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, and passes the Hector Pieterson Museum and Memorial, which commemorates the 1976 student uprising. Press reports describe the route as undulating and challenging rather than fast. The women's course record is 2:33:43, set by Irvette van Zyl in 2018, and the men's is 2:16:28, set by Shadrack Kipchirchir in 2012. The most recent edition was held on 29 November 2025. The organiser's website states there is no event in 2026, so entries are not open.
Typical climate for the race month — an estimate, not a forecast or a race-day record
November in Johannesburg is late spring: afternoon highs average about 25°C, mornings about 13°C, and rain of 1 mm or more falls on around ten days of the month.
Johannesburg
The Soweto Marathon was first run in 1991 and has long been known as the People's Race. It is described as founded to commemorate the 1976 Soweto Uprising and to celebrate the resilience of the township, and the course passes the Hector Pieterson Museum and Memorial, which marks the 1976 student uprising.
In 2018 Irvette van Zyl won the women's race in 2:33:43, a new course record that took more than two minutes off the 2:36:02 set by Ethiopia's Meseret Mengistu in 2014. She said she had not expected to run it, having had a baby five months earlier.
The race was held on 29 November 2025 under the Soweto Marathon NPC after a dispute with the Soweto Marathon Trust and Central Gauteng Athletics over who should organise it. As of late October 2026 the elite podium finishers, including men's winner Joseph Seutloali and third-placed woman Gerda Steyn, said they had not been paid their prize money. The title sponsor said it had met all its contractual obligations to the organisers.
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02:16:28
Shadrack Kipchirchir Kemboi (2012)
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