Marius Hurter: From Springbok Rugby Player to Endurance Jock
Marius Hurter has taken the lessons learnt from a top-class rugby career, and become a tough, never-give-up endurance athlete who defies the odds.
There are tough men – and then there’s Marius Hurter. He’s the Matt Beers of the back of the pack. The Chuck Norris of endurance. The Hurternator.
He’s gone from a Springbok career that spanned 13 Tests – including the famous 1995 World Cup final – and a first-class record of 300-plus games, to becoming a multi-sport endurance athlete who has finished nine Absa Cape Epics, eight full Ironman events, five Two Oceans Marathons and five Fish River and Breede River canoe marathons.
Hurter continues to find ways to challenge himself, in sports he’s not ideally designed to compete in.
“But I like to suffer. I like the adversity, and the graft – and it’s so lekker when you finish!”
“Everything is against me… whether I’m riding, paddling or running. But I like to suffer. I like the adversity, and the graft – and it’s so lekker when you finish!” says Hurter, 53, who has trimmed down from 132kg in his rugby days to a svelte 109kg today.
But where did this desire to continually test himself begin?
Hurter grew up in a military household. His dad was a brigadier, who instilled in him a love for fitness at an early age.
“When I was in standard eight, my dad gave me this two-metre log and told me that if I wanted to play professional rugby one day, and be in the paratroopers, I needed to harden up.
RELATED: How Ann Harrison Turned Her Passion into a Life of Inspiring Adventures
“I just grew up in a household where you did fitness every day. And I think the neighbours used to think I was mad, because I would do laps around the house with the log before school, followed by push-ups and pull-ups.”
Hurter’s father also inspired him to believe that anything was possible.
“He used to tell me that when you’re totally knackered, you’ve only used a third of your energy. I’ve remembered that my whole life. So when I’m stuffed, I think ‘There’s still two-thirds there, somewhere’. Because my dad said so!”
Rugby
Hurter agrees that many of the lessons he learnt playing top-flight rugby have also carried through to his love of endurance sport.
“Rugby teaches you to deal with disappointment; because you aren’t always going to win. It’s just life, and you need to accept it.
“You don’t learn as much when everything’s going well. You only learn through disappointment,” he says, just two days after withdrawing from the 2024 Cape Epic after suffering severe cramp on the second stage.
Hurter retired from rugby in 2006, but maintained a strict training regime in the gym. Still, it was only when he read about fellow Springbok prop Robbie Kempson’s successful finish at the 2008 Epic that the challenge of endurance sport came into view.
“I thought that if Robbie could do it, then I could do it,” Hurter says. “So I phoned [Cape Epic founder] Kevin [Vermaak] for an entry, and got a partner.”
Hurter would sometimes wake up at three in the morning to train, and went on to finish his first Epic in 2009 (in over 55 hours) with partner Christiaan Schutte. Since then, he’s completed the Epic in 2010, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2023.
“You have to make peace with the fact that you’re going too slowly. When I’m cycling uphill, I’m going at four and a half kilometres an hour; and on some of the climbs at the Swiss Epic, that can be a two-hour climb. But you can’t fight gravity, or wind; and I’m happy to grind it out. I just know how to find my own pace. And yes, I have to hug the cut-off sometimes!
“But it’s vasbyt stuff. And I love the camaraderie.”
Hurter has many friends at the Epic, as his easygoing personality has endeared him to the backmarkers he rides with. Unlike many of his VIP colleagues, he chooses to sleep in the tents provided by the race, rather than taking up more comfortable accommodation at a B&B or hotel.
RELATED: William Keith Ditched His Successful Corporate Life – To Open A Bike Shop
“I like to talk to people. I think because we moved around so much when I was younger, I learnt to make connections with people quickly. When I’m out on the route I tend to be quite jokey, and have a positive attitude. I think it rubs off on other riders.”
Sense Of Adventure
Hurter has three daughters, aged 19, 17 and 15, and is proud to have instilled in them his keen sense of adventure. They regularly hike and trail run over weekends; and recently, his youngest daughter completed the Cape Town Cycle Tour with her father.
He worked for years in finance at Rand Merchant Bank, but recently finally moved into his preferred career as a sports law and family lawyer in Somerset West. And he’s planning many more endurance adventures, including the arduous 160km Ultra-Trail Mont Blanc trail run, and the six-day, 380km Dragon’s Back Run in Wales.
“I have a saying, with my girls, when things get tough: ‘Hurters never give up.’ And that there is such a thing as Hurter power! So when I had to withdraw after two stages of this year’s Epic, my daughters just asked me, ‘What happened to the Hurter power?!’”
Despite his disappointment this year, Hurter plans on returning to the Epic, and intends to continue challenging himself.
“I want to keep going for as long as I can. I don’t want to regret not doing something, when I’m older.”
Marius Hurter earned the nickname ‘The Hurternator’ while riding with Joel Stransky at the Sani2c. During one of the stages, Hurter missed a tight corner and ended up riding straight into the bushes – prompting a laughing Stransky to call him by the nickname that’s stuck ever since.
READ MORE ON: interview