You may have suspected that the Comrades Marathon is different, but at the start all doubts vanish. The atmosphere is carnival. We are an eccentric family doing for one day what we like best. And no matter how humble the results, for 11 hours we focus on the same thing.
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We will be loved and applauded for it. From dawn until the sun sets in Durban, we are the children of the road, to be succoured, encouraged, praised and protected. Today there can only be one outcome, each runner a winner, each a hero.
At the start, there is neither doubt nor fear. The outcome is predetermined. The Comrades family will ensure our safe passage to Durban. Even when the last ounce of energy has been spent, there will be an arm of support, a shoulder to steady our shaking legs, someone to carry us over the finish line.
The start
In faith then, at 06h00 on the 31 May each year, the Comrades Marathon begins, each of us knowing that this year is our year; that this year we are at the peak. We are older, wiser, more experienced. This year, at the moment of truth, when once more the pain and discomfort become intolerable, the desire to quit almost irresistible, we will fight back with more courage, greater energy, supreme endurance. This year we will run the course on our own terms; we will become the heroes we were always meant to be.
For the first 4 hours of the 1987 down race to Durban, I know all these things; I know that this is finally to be my year. The approach march has been easy. The first 40km or more have passed effortlessly; the pace has been a pleasure. The friendship, the scenery, the weather – all have been perfect. But then, as it always is on the ‘down’ run, the steep climb past the Alverston Tower up to Botha’s Hill Village, makes the effort noticeable for the first time.
Getting tougher
Quite suddenly I no longer have breath to spare on conversation. My horizon comes down to the few metres of road ahead and I shorten my stride, looking for maximal efficiency. These kilometres must be run in earnest.
Soon enough, however, the hill is crested and there is a human warmth of the crowded village. It is time to take stock. The distance has by now removed just enough energy for my legs to be become concerned. Sensing that today something extra is expected, they urge caution, they argue for energy conversation – a shorter, less flamboyant stride. But even now I know that their warning has come too late, that I have again been carried away by the occasion. For however easy the first 4 hours may have felt, the cost has been too high. Within one hour I must for my early excesses; I must re-enter the soul of the Comrades, that special confrontation between an exhausted body and mind, and an ailing but unbeaten will.
‘It is one of the strange ironies of this strange life that those who work the hardest, who subject themselves to the strictest discipline, who give up certain pleasurable things in order to achieve a goal are the happiest men. When you see 20 or 30 men line up for a distance race in some meet, don’t pity them, don’t feel sorry for them. Better envy them instead.’
Brutus Hamilton (1957)
Mind
Through Botha’s Hill Village and Hillcrest, I must of necessity distract my mind from the oncoming holocaust. I wave, talk and smile to every spectator, interested or otherwise. My mind, as if preparing for the coming onslaught, is sharpened and extrovert. These are “magic miles”, the best miles in reflection are always those immediately preceding the final collapse. Then too quickly I am past Hillcrest.
Now, alone, unaided, I must pass into the void beyond. It is here, in the sudden solitude of the quiet lane that meanders gracefully through Emberton and Gillitts that, for me, the Comrades Marathon really begins. No longer do I progress on my own terms – the hopes and confidence stored in training now vanish before the reality. The course, which has been held at bay for 57km is now running me. I am approaching the line, isolated, uncertain, caring only for survival.
Fatigue kicks in
My legs, detecting the first signs of an ailing will, begin their own mutiny, their tactics carefully prepared. They inform me that this is far enough. Geographically, they argue, the race is two – thirds over. Why, they ask, must they continue to run, knowing from here that each step will become ever more painful, even harder? After all, there is always next year. Through the blanket of developing fatigue, I begin to appreciate the logic behind these questions; begin to feel the attraction of that haven of rest at the side of the road, the bliss of not having to take even one more step towards Durban.
Around me, I know that each runner is engaged in this same battle. In common suffering, we are alone to find our individual solutions. A glance up the road shows a string of runners, each running alone, each separated by a constant distance from the runner in front and behind. A common thread holds us together, but only reluctantly do we defile the sanctity of the space that separates us – the space that is our universe – 20m of tarmac, our seconders, and just enough room left over for our thoughts.
My willpower now comes from my second. Ever smiling, ever happy, he is pure encouragement; my sole is a precious link with a world that cares. In his hands he carries all our wealth: a bucket containing iced water, a sponge and a choice of three different drinks. His presence confirms that it is all worthwhile, that to him and his world, I am the most important runner – that together, whatever the cost, we must endure, we must both survive.
So, despite the internal mutiny of an exhausted body, as I approach Kloof Station, my mind is still in control. But whatever material reserves I retain, I know that they are inadequate to the sight that now confronts me.
Fields Hill
From Kloof Station, at the top of Fields Hill, the Comrades plays its most evil trick. Experience tells me not to look, that should I for one second divert my eyes from the road, I will most likely not finish. But I have no discipline and I see it laid before me: the final, infinite 25km that separates me from Durban and the finish at the Kingsmead cricket ground.
In each race, I have learned, the desire to quit comes but once. It is a coward who, once beaten, does not return. But as I begin the decent of Field’s Hill, even this knowledge is of no assistance. Now 4km from my second, who must wait anxiously in Pinetown, forbidden to help me on this major highway, my mind hovers in the balance. I progress now only because it is automatic, it takes time to switch the engine off.
And it is here on this major decent, that I am joined by the final tormentor. The continual jarring of the sharp descents from Inchanga, Botha’s Hill and Hillcrest has taken it’s toll on my quadriceps muscles and every step now sends an ever more painful shock down each thigh. The muscles are in rebellion: depleted of energy, their connective tissue is now coming apart. I am a physical coward in the best of circumstances, and the added pain is too much, my tenuous willpower finally deserts. I become Maurice Hertzog descending from the epic first ascent of Annapurna (Hertzog, 1952): ‘It’s all over, Lionel, I am finished. Leave me alone and let me die.
You may, of course, think that even now I could still walk. That a few minutes of rest would restore the desire to live, would defeat the coward within. But you would be wrong. For the discomfort I feel exceeds my ability to recall or describe it. ‘After 18 miles,’ wrote David Costill (1974), the world’s foremost running physiologist, ‘the sensation of exhaustion were unlike anything I had ever experienced. I could not run, walk or stand, and even found sitting a bit strenuous.’ Were the human brain able to recall the pain of Field’s Hill, no one would ever run the ‘down’ Comrades twice.
This then, is the point each runner, from first to last, must pass if he is to arrive in Durban on his own two feet. It is here, stripped of society’s false privileges, that he finds no hiding place, no shelter of convenience. Face to face with himself, he must look deep inside. ‘These miles,’ wrote George Sheehan, ‘will challenge everything he holds dear, his value system, his lifestyle. They will ask nothing less than his views of the Universe.’
For me, in 1978, that desire to live did not come from within, not come from any universal insights. For coinciding with these darkest moments, 23km away Alan Robb was just completing his greatest Comrades. I learned this from a lone spectator, perched on the embankment that skirts Field’s Hill. Alan Robb, everyone’s complete runner – quiet, undemonstrative, humble in victory (‘I owe everything to my seconds’) – enshrines the Comrades ethic. He is a victory of purity, a victory of the human spirit, the affirmation of morality.
With renewed vigour, with renewed faith that if the test is severe enough, goodness must always prevail, my gloom disappears and I enter Pinetown. Now I find sufficient energy to use the last trick of the ailing runner – a trick learned from Dave Levick, the man who’s Comrades record had even then just been surpassed. ‘Run’, he said, ‘from face to face. Look into the eyes of each spectator. Look at their joy. Imagine who they are, what they do, how much they want you to do well. Let them pull you through.’
A thousand faces later, I have survived Pinetown, have climbed Cowie’s Hill, to enter the last dreadful 16km.
The last 8km
Through Westville, the endless downhill reactivates the ice pick that hammers ever more painfully with each downhill stride. At 45th Cutting, I have but 41 minutes to cover the last 8km to claim a silver medal. Down Black Hill I prepare for the last hill, the curving climb past the West Ridge tennis courts to Tollgate. Now I am reduced to running each step by itself. My eyes see only the road at my feet. I now must obey the Comrades runner’s rule – ‘Don’t look upwards’ – because I have no choice. I no longer have the energy even to lift my eyes to the horizontal.
‘ I have thought it right to emphasize the hard work and dedication that will be needed for future athletic success; but one thing is certain, the man who emerges from the maelstrom intact will know more about himself, his character, his limitations, his emotions and his strengths, than any man who has never in some direction forced himself to his very limit.’
Chris Chataway (1964 )
Then, at first only gradually, I begin to perceive that the gradient has, at last, begun to relent. Soon I reach the summit ridge, a cruel 100m from the top of the Tollgate ridge. My faith is extreme. No-longer is there sufficient oxygen on the planet to keep me moving. My staggering gait and contorted face suggest imminent collapse. I wonder vaguely whether I will die, whether the psychiatrist, Coon, was right when he suggested that death may be the ultimate aim of marathoners.
He likened us to the king’s messengers – those who took pride in sacrificing themselves for their monarch. ‘One always sees in these messengers a moment of exaltation, when they have finally won through and delivered the news; then it seems to be an almost inexorable destiny for them to drop dead – anything but death would be a dull, sodden anticlimax’ (Coon 1957).
Tollgate
But like Maurice Hertzog, I am to be spared. Slowly the gradient relents, and I spill over Tollgate encouraged by the spectators’ assurance that from here it is all downhill.
Now, 3 minutes later, the fire in my chest has relented, the ache in my legs recedes. Now I know for sure that I will finish. But can I meet the 7 hour 30 minute deadline? My second is adamant. There is to be no rest. The whip is now out; his attitude is quiet coercion but I do not care to test the extent of his patience.
The minutes speed by, but the road seems to stand still. I am straining to deliver full power, but sound as controlled as a steam engine at full throttle. I wobble and groan monstrously. I begin to hope that something will burst.
Barely 8 minutes remain as I turn into Old Dutch Road and see my marker, the trees lining the road outside Old Kingsmead. Like the Chinese who, it is said, could run great distances in the mountains by fixing on a distant peak and entering a trancelike state, I see only these trees. I run oblivious to the surrounding noise and confusion of a Natal road under perennial
reconstruction.
The stadium is in sight
Finally the entrance to Kingsmead beckons. From inside, the noise of 2000 voices is deafening. ‘Two-oo minutes.’ I comprehend the meaning but can no longer calculate distance and times. When I am halfway round the field, the crowd in unison informs me that now only one minutes remains. I rumble on, cursing that my victory lap has to be run in such an undignified race against the clock.
Then I see the finishing line. On the left, a haggered group of runners. On the right, pacing expectantly like Gary Cooper at High Noon in Dodge City, is the elegant figure of Mick Winn, the race organiser. In his right hand is the finishing pistol, the discharge of which will signal a bronze death.
I am still 10m short of the line when he turns his back, and the pistol in his right hands arches agonisingly skywards. My last coherent thought is whether our happy friendship is about to end.
Crossing the finishing line
Later, from the warm comfort of the Kingsmead turf, when a measure of physiological normality has returned, secure in the knowledge that the last step has been taken, I know again why it is all necessary – what common bond unites all Comrades. Skill, you see, is not our requirement, nor has our race anything to do with winning or losing.
These are the spoils of other, lesser games, unable to transport you to the place were we have been, we who have accompanied Hertzog to the summit of our own Annapurna, to which we had gone empty handed, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With the realisation we turn the page: a new life begins. There are other ‘Annapurnas in the lives of men’ (Hertzog, 1952).
Indeed. And the only requirement, the common bond that links all Comrades runners, is the need to look for the mountains in life. To take the paths least travelled, to go against the common stream, to the search for the unattainable, and finally, as Meander said, to accept that we have no option – ‘A man’s nature and way of life are his fate, and that what he calls his fate is but his disposition.’
So for several years, because I had no choice but to follow my fate, on 31 May (now 16 June) sometime between 06h00 and 17h00, you would have found me in mind, if not in body, somewhere on the Old Main Road between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, secure in the knowledge each time that this was my year, that this year I would finally defeat the coward within, and so commence the hero’s life.
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