A Leisurely 56-Mile Run

Comrades is billed as the Ultimate Human race and I found out why on Sunday May 30th when I was one of the “lucky’ novice entrants who were given 5,000 slots that sold out in a day after 16,000 slots had been filled by past Comrades finishers and get a confirmed entry for my first Comrades.

The results site lists 23,568 entrants with approx. 15,600 finishers but I have no way of knowing how many actually made it to the start, having dropped out through attrition, injury.....or perhaps finding their “sanity” and withdrawing from the race?

I’ve wanted to run Comrades for the past 15 years as it has always held a mystique and a lure both for its location and challenge to the mind, body and spirit and each would sorely be tested as I woke up at 1:30 AM on Sunday morning after arriving with Elle G. in Durban Friday afternoon about 3 PM after a grueling 14 hour non stop flight into Johannesburg where we then needed to take a second flight to Durban. Unfortunately I only got just 2 hours of sleep from 8-10 PM and just tried to relax in bed until the wake up and bus boarding at 2:30 for the 56 mile drive to the race start in Pietermaritzburg that would then follow the “down” route to the race finish, 89 km away in Durban.

The start in Pietermaritzburg amid lit up buildings was very orderly but often emotional with African chants and the playing of the South African anthem and at 5:30 AM we were off on our journey in darkness for the first hour until the sun came up and warmed a very chilly morning and I started to get into my ultra pacing rhythm until I fell about 5 km into the race, the first of 3 falls I would have during the race due to tripping on the reflectors on the road due to my own clumsiness and later fatigue.

Each year the race is either listed as an “UP” or “DOWN” year as far as either starting the race in Pietermaritzburg and finishing in Durban or the reverse and for the 85th anniversary race we had a down course which didn’t mean we had it easy but just meant that most of the hills were at least in the early to mid stages of the race. The hills at Comrades while not particularly steep are instead as long as 2-3 Km and the resulting long down hills made you feel like your quads would just explode.

Things were going well for me through the 60 km split where I was on pace for a 10 or so hour finish and really focused on staying in the moment, feeding off the energy of the huge crowds that lined the race route, the helicopters overhead broadcasting the race which is televised nationally throughout the day in SA.

In American marathons we have pace groups that are organized and very helpful for those time goal determined but in South Africa these pace groups are called “buses” where you can either get on say a 10 or 11 hour bus and participate in the walk breaks or just run/walk on your own throughout the course. I basically started out with a 10 hour bus through the 60 km but as my body started to breakdown as well as my spirit I switched to an 11 hour bus and loved the chanting that the SA runners were singing while running and was really impressed with their energy, enthusiasm, comradeship  which was on display throughout the day with each runner calling one another.....brother.

My race unraveled at about the 70 km split with lactic acid having a field day on my quads, my stomach bloated and producing little urine (I would later need a post race IV) despite my drinking either PowerAde, cola or water which came in little plastic baggies you needed to carefully bite into or they would burst. I purposely ate often and would alternate between chips, oranges or cold potatoes dipped in salt to offset dehydration and nausea but as the kilometers slowly ticked down I was getting worse though I knew I would make the 12 hour cutoff but would not make my desired goal of a 10 hour finish.

I basically walked most of the last 9 km along with many others frustrated by my performance and inability to generate any running but with each step relieved that I would at least be one of the “lucky” ones to beat the cutoff and “conquer” Comrades which is the primary reason most come to Comrades from near and far drawn by it’s challenges and notoriety and wish to enter the stadium finish filled with thousands of cheering people and just cross the finish line before the human chain of men appear at exactly 12 hours and actually block those still approaching the finish from actually crossing the finish line.

In Ironman there’s a strict 17 hour cutoff but they let you cross the line though you are not listed as an official finisher but I’ve never seen anything so “cruel” or ruthless like I saw at Comrades as we were all screaming at the runners with just seconds remaining in the cutoff to make it to the finish and those runners who do not make the cutoff just drop from exhaustion and bury their heads in their hands prone on the ground.

In the end Comrades lived up to it’s billing and tested my mind and body like no other race has ever done and I feel both grateful to be a part of its rich history and to be among its finishers and to remember it always. - Scott C.