11 Sep OUTSurance Gun Run Guns Blazing in Cape Town
By Adnaan Mohamed
Cape Town is about to get a serious dose of running fever as the 2026 OUTsurance Gun Run rolls into the Mother City this weekend, with champions, Olympians and record hunters lining up for a two-day battle against the clock.
The battlefield is familiar. The stakes are high. And when the Cape Field Artillery’s 20lb battlefield gun booms, the starting line will erupt and the stopwatch will begin its unforgiving march.
The 21.1km Half Marathon on Sunday, September 13, promises the weekend’s biggest fireworks, with defending champion Joseph Seutloali, Adam Lipschitz and former winner Lloyd Bosman locked into a tantalising three-way tussle.
Seutloali returns wearing the champion’s crown and carrying the course record after his magnificent 1:02:27 victory last year. The Lesotho star representing Hollywood Athletics Club made his decisive move on the hills before opening the throttle and leaving the chasing pack gasping in his wake.
His credentials make the target on his back even larger. Seutloali owns a 1:01:58 personal best and won the 2025 Two Oceans Ultra Marathon, underlining the strength that makes him such a formidable road-racing package.
Yet Lipschitz arrives with the stopwatch whispering loudly in his ear.
The Social Runners Club athlete ran a sensational 1:01:05 lifetime best in Ireland, despite initially travelling to the race as a pacemaker. He paced the field for 19km before completing the race himself, producing a performance that transformed a supporting role into a personal triumph.
His 2026 numbers tell their own story: 28:26 for 10km, 43:14 for 15km and 2:08 for the marathon.
Lipschitz already knows the Gun Run stage. He won the 10km in 2025 and finished second in the 21km in 2024 behind Bosman. Now he has his sights trained squarely on Seutloali’s 1:02:27 course record.
Bosman, meanwhile, brings the experience of a former champion and the stamina of an ultra-distance warrior. The Nedbank Running Club athlete won the Gun Run Half Marathon in 2024 and finished third in 2025. His 1:02:15 PB, 2024 Two Oceans runner-up finish and spectacular seventh-place Comrades debut in 5:28:53 make him a genuine podium threat.
The women’s race carries its own heavyweight intrigue.
Defending champion Busisiwe Chamane returns after winning last year in 1:17:45. The Hollywood Athletics Club athlete has since lowered her PB to 1:17:07, giving her an extra turn of the screw as she attempts to make it back-to-back Gun Run victories.
Then comes one of the weekend’s most compelling storylines: Irvette van Zyl’s return after seven years away.
The four-time Olympian last raced the Gun Run in 2019, winning the half marathon in 1:12:11, the second-fastest women’s time in the event’s history behind Elana van Zyl’s 1:10:55 course record from 1999.
Van Zyl’s 2019 performance was remarkable after significant surgery earlier that year. Now she returns with a measured target.
“I’m quite excited.”
“This is the first time I will be back running it since 2019. I knew I wanted to go back but never had the chance. So yeah, just excited everything worked out this year that I can go and run it.”
She remains a fan of the route.
“I like the route. It has a bit of a tough hill in it and yeah, it’s just nice views running it and it’s almost a great atmosphere running in Cape Town and going through C point at the finish.”
Her target is pragmatic.
“I’m hoping for close to that time that I did run in 2019. So anything under 73 I’ll be very happy with, but the weather also has to play with. So we’ll see.”
And her biggest victory may already have arrived.
“But yeah, I’m just excited to be healthy and be running and just be back after seven years of absence and really looking forward to it.”
Saturday’s 10km gets its own headline act when Stephen Mokoka makes his Gun Run debut.
The four-time Olympian and five-time World Championships representative owns a formidable 27:38 10km PB, 59:36 half-marathon best and 2:06 marathon PB. The 41-year-old former South African 10km record holder has also shown that the engine still has plenty of horsepower, including a sub-29-minute performance at the Hollywoodbets Durban 10km.
With last year’s 10km winner Lipschitz stepping up to the half marathon, Mokoka becomes the obvious name to beat, although Cape Town’s local speed merchants will have other ideas.
The Gun Run weekend is bigger than elite racing. The 17km Trail Run starts at Van Riebeeck Park, Oranjezicht, at 06h30 on Saturday, followed by the 10km Run/Walk at 07h00, 5km Fun Run at 08h00 and 5km Pet Walk at 08h30, all from Fritz Sonnenberg Road.
Sunday’s Half Marathon fires away at 06h30.
Every race finishes on the Green Point Common, opposite the Green Point Cricket Club, where food stalls and a kiddies play area will turn the finish into a family festival.
Then the gun will speak again.
The race has promised its traditional cannon salute, with the Cape Field Artillery’s 20lb battlefield gun firing to signal the start and finish of the Half Marathon.
For the elites, though, the real artillery will be carbon-plated shoes, burning lungs and relentless legs.
Ready. Set. Gun Run. Cape Town’s road-running battlefield is loaded.
