He moved from Malelane in the lowveld to Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool in Pretoria after the call of his piano-playing prowess and his talented musical fingers, but the name of George Kusche is now in the news due to the fastness of his feet.
Yes, Kusche was the first novice in SA’s best known road race, the Comrades ultramarathon, finishing 12th in 5hr 41min, and less than two minutes outside a coveted gold medal.
Still 26 years old, many will consider him a youngster in terms of running Comrades, especially when he clearly has enormous talent over the shorter distances, having run a sub 13min 30sec track 5,000m (holding the national record for a period), and a 28:50 over 10km.
He remembers his early years fondly. “Nought to 13 were definitely the most formative years of my life in the lowveld. I made lifelong friends, rode my bicycle barefoot to school, played all sports except hockey and I excelled at rugby, making the Under-12 Pumas side.”
But rugby dreams went from flying high to F-team when he got to Affies as a boarder and he returned to athletics.
“After high school I did three semesters at Tukkies before moving to the US [Nebraska-Lincoln] but a little while before that I’d met my wife to be.
“She [Lizerie] was already [a] first year [student] but I’d met her while I was in Grade 11 as we both trained with Johan Botha.
“I fell in love instantly but she took a while to get the hang of it. But things went from strength to strength during my five years in the US. We kept our relationship going, got married and now have a little boy, also named George.”
These days Kusche is a data scientist by day (though he’d love to run full time), having returned from the US with a BSc in Actuarial Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2021 and MSc in Statistics from Northern Arizona University.
He was nearly lost to running though as he fell out of love with the sport. His form went down and he picked up weight, at one stage weighing a bulky 86kg.
“I was going to the gym a lot so was quite strong but also kind of fat.
“It took a while for me to get fit again but I ended up losing 19kg and thought why not give Comrades a shot, as I was 24 at the time and there were guys almost twice my age doing very well.”
Torn ankle ligaments in February set him back but his route to the Comrades starting line saw him running 2hr 20min at the Cape Town Marathon and an ultramarathon in Irene.
Self-coached for now, his longest training week was one of 208km while his longest single trained run was 53km (the Tshwane North 50km race plus 3km warm-down).
Like so many have done before, Kusche tackled Comrades because of its uniqueness. “It’s just unparalleled in SA running events. I reconnected with people I hadn’t spoken to in years, laypersons know Comrades, my friends who couldn’t care about running know about Comrades.”
He’s comfortable in the fact that he knows his talents are on display in the shorter distances but swears he will make it work in the long run.
“Nothing can fully prepare you for Comrades, especially those last 20km … you have to be mentally tough. I believe in training to be tough, even though you can’t prepare totally physically, mentally is crucial.”
As data scientists do, less than two weeks after the race, Kusche is already crunching numbers in his head and formulating future success.
“I’m already looking to learn from experts in other fields, like a strength coach in the gym and working with a nutritionist from this week already.”
But he’s very quick to add: “I eat whatever my wife makes and it’s almost always better than expected … after the nutritionist’s advice we may adapt but I’m very reliant on what Lizerie makes me.”
On this year’s Comrades itself he has some intriguing observations. “I was in good shape for what was a new distance to me — in hindsight think I may have actually been in too good an aerobic shape but should have looked at preparing my muscles more for the downhills. I was never out of breath, but if your legs are tired …”
The bad news for his rivals is that his second Comrades should be the up run, and being taller than most of his rivals, he feels he’s better suited to that version.
“I felt brilliant on uphills … was constantly wishing for more uphills and noticed that every incline I was putting distance between me and the other guys so I am definitely looking forward to the up run.”
Recently taking to reading English literature in his spare time, Kusche will be looking to rewrite Comrades history next year and you can bet he’ll be better tuned this time out.
Herself a former national level track and cross-country runner, Lizerie, now a practising lawyer, understands perfectly well how driven her husband is.
“He’s an exceptionally smart man and is always planning for something that he puts his mind to, whether it be work or even Comrades. In hindsight, even though he’s brilliant with numbers, I sometimes think that deep down he’d love to study music — we have classical music playing from morning to evening in our lives.
“Very goal-driven, he almost becomes obsessed with making things work, so for Comrades this year he planned everything to the very last detail. In this sense I think it helped that I was also an athlete.”
The good thing is that he’s also obsessed with caring for his wife, child and family unit which pleases Lizerie no end.
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