Since then the America’s female athletes had been battling to repeat Trason’s success. Only three other athletes managed to finish in the top five. Kami Semick was fourth in 2010 and third in 2011 and Devon Yanko was fourth in 2012.

But just maybe Sarah Bard will be the one that will make the big breakthrough. Last year the American running for Nedbank Running Club finished fourth in a time of 6:42:35. She certainly has the credentials. In 2014 and 2015 she won the JFK 50 Miler, she also has won the USATF 50km Road National Championships in 2015 while finishing fourth in IAU 100km World Championships.

Bard admits that her preparation for last year’s Comrades was not what it should have been. Lacklustre is the word she uses.

“I didn’t have a strong motivation to get out there and run every day. I just think I was very lucky and was able to rely on my muscle memory and long-term base. I trained at pretty low mileage and I’m a higher-mileage runner. I was training at like 50 miles per week before Comrades. I think I got like one good week in there, but it was like 50 to 65 miles most weeks. I knew I was in no condition to win but I felt like I had a good shot to place between third and sixth, based on times from past years.

“Actually at Comrades I must have tied on the timing chip wrong because it kept tightening my shoelaces. So I stopped three times to re-tie my shoes, but it kept tightening, so my one leg was shutting down from like 30km in. I stopped at one point and asked a stranger to massage my butt while I was standing up. My entire leg was becoming something that I was dragging along with me. It was a tough race. The downhill takes it out of you; I started to look forward to the uphill.”

If everything goes according to plan Bard hopes to a time close to six hours in her second Comrades attempt.
“I do feel like the longer the race, the stronger I feel. In both Comrades and the 100km championships, I passed most of the people in the last 10 kilometres of the race. Like I’ve reached this certain point in the race and I can actually open it up and not worry that my body will shut down.”

Bard admits to her first marathon experience being a slight nightmare.

“I decided to run the Boston Marathon in my senior year of college. I did the thing that many people who have run all their lives probably do, which is to underestimate the marathon. So I thought I was good at this and I ran a 1:30 for the first half, and then I finished in 4:02. It was so painful. At some stage stopped. I was going to take the commuter rail, but I had bought that stupid jacket and thought, I can never wear that jacket if I don’t finish. I started running again, and then I would stop and think, No way, and start walking toward the commuter rail, but then I would turn back around and start running again. Eventually I finished but I basically walked/ran the whole second half and I’ve never been—to this day, I don’t think I’ve been in that much pain.

“After all of this I had to redeem myself as marathon runner. So my next race was the Chicago Marathon which I managed to finish with feeling like I want to die.”

As to how she got started racing ultras Bard said: “For a long time I just thought I would be good at ultras. But in my head you didn’t do ultras until you were old, so I thought I couldn’t do them until I got old. I was waiting until I was old but I some point I decided I just needed to do it because it was something that I wanted to do.”