08/06/2026
A Send-Off Worth Remembering
This afternoon, Fitness First gathered to send off our Comrades runners and what was meant to be a simple send-off turned into something much richer.
As speaker after speaker took the platform, the room filled with stories we needed to hear.
We heard how Mdawini registered for the Matopos 53km ultra having never run a half marathon. How that race nearly finished him. And how in a move that surprised absolutely no one who knows Mdawini he somehow forgot all of that and found himself in Durban for his first Comrades. We heard about Dini, the friend whose quiet nudge set the whole thing in motion. One conversation. One registration. And a city’s running culture was never quite the same again.
From that unlikely beginning grew something remarkable. Mdawini’s participation inspired others Fatima, Misheck, Simba, Andrew, Moyo, Rudo and more and from that circle, Fitness First was born. These are our pioneers. They ran with no water points, no support structure, no template to follow. There is a story club legend by now — of one pioneer so dehydrated during a Zinikele training run that he stopped and drank from a pothole. Dirty water. From the road. And he came back the following weekend.
That is the founding spirit of this club.
As the afternoon unfolded, one truth kept rising above everything else: everyone once struggled. We are tempted to look at the runners we admire today and assume the gift was always there. But many of the people doing extraordinary things on the road the ones we watch and quietly measure ourselves against could not break 4:30 in a marathon just ten years ago. What stands between then and now is not natural ability. It is training, time, and a community that refuses to let you give up.
Most of us would never have registered for anything beyond 10km without someone more experienced standing beside us and saying just try. That nudge is not a small thing. For many of us, it was everything.
The pioneers built something worth protecting. The challenge now falls on every single member to keep this club alive, to keep it growing, and to keep raising the standard. To show up for training. To nudge the hesitant newcomer. To carry forward what was handed to us and make it better than we found it.
The next generation of Bulawayo runners is watching. What they attempt will depend on what we model.
Basicandela indlela. The pioneers opened the road. Now it is our turn to keep it open and push it further.
FITNESS FIRST WE RUN THE CITY
