Mavis Hutchinson

Who is Mavis Hutchinson?

Mavis Hutchison is a South African athlete.

Her career began as a race walker, and her first record was in the 50-mile walk known as the Rand Daily Mail Big Walk in 1963. That same year she was timed over the standard marathon distance of 42.2 km, but took about ten minutes longer than Violet Piercy had done in 1926, and 13 minutes longer than Merry Lepper's time a few months later.

In 1965 she was the third woman in history to finish the 90 km of the Comrades Marathon, and the first since the 1930s. In later years she completed the race seven more times.

She went on to set new women's world records for the 100-mile and 24 hour run in 1971, and for the 100-mile and 24-hour walk in 1973. In 1973 Mavis became the first woman to run the 602 km from Germiston to Durban in 1973, following this with the 'up' run from Durban to Germiston the following year. By this time she was well known in South Africa as the 'Galloping Granny'. In 1975 she took a bit over 22 days to run the 1000 miles from Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital, to Cape Town, the legislative capital. That same year she entered the Comrades for the first time as an official participant, even though the Pretoria to Cape Town run had left her in poor shape for the race, but dropped out toward the end when she realized she would finish outside the maximum allowed time of 11 hours. In 1976 she ran from Germiston to Cape Town, beating her previous time by more than three days, and in 1977 she ran from Messina, on South Africa's northern border, to Johannesburg.