The window for Comrades Marathon 2026 qualifying times closes on Monday 4 May, ending an eleven-month run that opened on 9 June 2025 and forcing tens of thousands of entrants into a final weekend of seeding-time hunting. Runners who fail to log a sub-five-hour standard marathon by the deadline forfeit their entries, and successful entrants drawn from the substitution ballot have the same date to satisfy the qualifying criteria or lose their place to the next runner on the list.
The Buffalo City Marathon, run on the Eastern Cape's East London circuit on Saturday, served as the year's last on-the-clock qualifying race for many South African entrants. The Comrades Marathon Association has long flagged Buffalo City as the closing date in its published qualifier list, and the East London event's late-April timing — combined with a fast, predominantly flat course — has earned it a reputation as the preferred final shot for runners chasing not just an entry, but a faster seeding bracket for the 14 June race.
Comrades' seeding system splits the field into letter batches that determine start position, with the fastest qualifying time logged inside the qualifying window setting the runner's bracket. The difference between an A and a D batch can stretch beyond ten minutes of stationary corral time at the Durban City Hall start, and that gap matters on an Up Run where the cut-off clock starts the moment the gun fires, regardless of where a runner is standing in the chute.
This year's deadline arrives a week after the Comrades Marathon Association confirmed the 2026 Up Run distance at 85.777 kilometres, the shortest measurement in recent history of the race. The route was officially measured by a World Athletics-accredited measurer using a calibrated bicycle and a Jones counter over the weekend of 25-26 April, with the shortened distance the result of ongoing road infrastructure changes between Durban and Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal.
For runners who miss the 4 May cut-off, there is no extension. The Comrades Marathon Association's stance on late qualifying has hardened in recent editions: medical exemptions cover injury or illness only when documented and presented within the standard window, and runners holding international substitution slots are bound by the same date as direct entrants. The seeding lists drawn from Monday's final tally will be released ahead of race week, with the Up Run start in Durban scheduled for 05:30 SAST on Sunday 14 June.