With three weeks to go to the 99th edition of Comrades Marathon, the Comrades Marathon Association has finalised the operational guidance for the most visible rule change in years. A new traffic-light cut-off system, introduced alongside the three-group start and the earlier 05.00 gun, will replace the single-clock format that has guided runners since the mid-2000s. The system is designed to give the 21,633-runner field clearer pacing information at the intermediate cut-off points along the 85.777km up-run between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, and to remove the recurring confusion in the back of the field about whose clock was on the gantry.
Under the new format, each intermediate cut-off point will display a green, amber or red status. A green light means the runner is comfortably inside their group's 12-hour buffer and the cut-off is not yet in play. An amber light means the runner has reached the cut-off zone and has minutes rather than tens of minutes to spare. A red light, when displayed, indicates the cut-off gun is imminent or has already gone. Officials at the gantries will continue to fire a physical gun at each cut-off and will close the road, but the lights will give runners a clearer read across the closing kilometres before that gun fires.
The traffic-light layer sits on top of the three-group start, which is the larger change for 2026. Group 1 will set off at 05.00, Group 2 at 05.15 and Group 3 at 05.30, and each group's official race clock will start at its own gun. The CMA's emphasis on each group having a full 12 hours regardless of start time is the operational point that most affects pacing strategy this year, because runners and supporters at the cut-off boards will need to translate the elapsed gun time on the gantry into their own group's clock. The traffic-light status is calculated from the group's gun, not the overall race clock.
The cut-off points themselves remain in the same physical locations as the 2025 race, including the historically decisive splits at Camperdown and at the Polly Shortts approach. The CMA has confirmed that each cut-off will have its own dedicated traffic-light gantry, with two boards facing the runners as they enter the cut-off zone and a third board sitting roughly 200 metres back to give a final pacing nudge. The race's online tracker will mirror the same lights for supporters, and the official broadcast feed will show the lights in real time alongside the leaderboard.
From a runner's perspective, the practical guidance from the CMA is that the lights are an aid, not a new rule. The 12-hour buffer for each group remains the controlling constraint and the cut-off gun remains the binding event. What the lights change is how the buffer is communicated, and the CMA has been clear in its FAQ that runners who reach the cut-off line on a red light have not, by definition, missed it. The first true test of how the system behaves under stress will come at the back of Group 3 on June 14, where the historical bunching at intermediate cut-offs has been heaviest and where the new lights will be working hardest.