At an age when many people are slowing down, a Bloubergstrand man deliberately raised the stakes.
At 60, Deon Basson decided that retirement from sensible decision-making wasn’t yet on the cards. Instead, he took on The Munga, a 1 000-km single-stage mountain-bike ultra across one of South Africa’s most unforgiving terrains. It combines a very long distance, strict time pressure, harsh terrain, heat and limited recovery into one event. He did it in 2024 and again in 2025. And then came the marathon. On 24 May 2026, he crossed the finish line of the Cape Town Marathon in 3:45:38.
Taken individually, each achievement is impressive. Put them together within a 12-month window at age 61, and they become altogether more unusual. Deon has publicly described the combination as a unique global achievement for a 60+ athlete: completing a 1 000-km single-stage ultra-MTB race and a marathon in the same year.
The statistics don’t fully explain the story. Because this isn’t only about cycling or running. It’s about what happens when someone decides that age is all in the mind.
Founder of reCInate and chairman of Spatialedge, Deon also is a keynote speaker. His professional world is one of leadership, sales, communication and AI. His sporting world involves heat, fatigue, pain, uncertainty and occasionally spending an unreasonable number of hours on a bike saddle.
However, the two worlds have much in common. He explained that his Munga Mindset was built around the idea that resilience wasn’t simply a personality trait bestowed on the lucky. ‘It’s a way of thinking and behaving under pressure. For instance, when things go wrong, it’s time to assess, not panic.
‘Should the goal seem distant, don’t obsess about it. Deal with the here and now. Adapt to changing circumstances. And when your brain starts prompting you to stop, remember why you started.’
That’s useful thinking whether you’re 800 km into an ultra or sitting around a boardroom table wondering why the quarterly numbers look shaky. Deon said the endurance and business challenges weren’t separate narratives. ‘They’re the same tale expressed in different environments.’
In a race, he measures distance, time, heart rate and cadence. He manages fatigue, makes decisions under pressure and constantly adjusts the plan. In business, the variables change but the mental mechanics remain similar: establish the facts, understand the process, manage relationships, stay focused and don’t forget the bigger picture.
His work with reCInate, his communication intelligence framework, reflects that same emphasis on how people think, communicate and behave when the pressure’s on. And that’s perhaps what makes his 60+ achievement more interesting than the stopwatch. The point is that capability is often constrained less by age than by the assumptions we attach to it.
Deon didn’t complete these challenges to prove toughness. His message is almost the opposite: mindset outweighs ability and hard work. But the bigger achievement may be the refusal to accept that getting older automatically means thinking smaller.
WHAT I LIKE
My slice of West Coast paradise is Melkbosstrand & Churchhaven
A favourite West Coast restaurant is Kapstadt Brauhaus
The food I can never say no to is hake & chips
What’s usually in my glass: gin & tonic
To chill out I cycle in the mountains
Cheering from the sidelines? Rugby & golf
I like reading about psychology
