Now before I start, for those of you that do not know, I did not finish the 92nd running of The Comrades but I lived it for a day from a perspective shared by the thousands who do not cross that finish line and not the vast majority of the TV viewers at home. I saw the great and the good, the tragedy and the soul of The Comrades yesterday and I want to share it with you.

Bats and Cannons

That was an experience like no other. Don’t be downbeat, Darren. Can’t be downbeat, Darren. Look, let’s go back to 3am Sunday morning. Picture the scene…

I wake after a good 6 hours sleep, the best sleep I have had the entire trip. The race starts at 5:30am on the dot and is gun timed, not chip timed, so the further back you are, you are basically in a Hajj-esque stampede of people trying to get over the line as soon as possible. Weetabix rather than porridge for me nowadays. I never thought to just change the cereal. Porridge always stuck in my throat two hours before a morning race, but Weetabix worked. A cuppa, morning ablutions and I was downstairs and being picked up by the driver from my tour company.

That is something I highly recommend to European runners considering The Comrades. I have been to South Africa several times and would not attempt the logistics by myself. The tour operator I went with was superb. They organised the hotel booking, picked me up from the airport, took me to and brought me back from the EXPO, organised a meal for all runners who had booked through them, picked me up on race day and brought me back, and took me to the airport at the end.

Anyway, back to the start. The driver picked me and the other runners up and drove us into downtown Durban. It was still dark, it is winter here and the sun wouldn’t show it’s face for several hours. I went straight to my pen where people were just sitting on the ground talking. It was lovely. Thousands of people sitting on the street, cross legged, chatting away or enjoying moments of peace. It did make me think of James.

The street the race started on had a large office building in the near distance that had images and advertising (I think it was one of the co-sponsors) projected on it. Trees lined either side. Every so often something would catch my eye as it flew over. Too early for birds. Wings back to front. These were bats. Large ones. But I am ok with bats (he says, not giving away his secret identity).

About 5am people stand up and they know what is coming. Introductions to the elite athletes and then the music. Chariots of Fire is traditional, and gets the waterworks going so much they cut it short, the national anthem and then…

There is a countdown to the start and the elites heading off into the darkness but rather than a gun, there is a cannon. We are all standing there, after throwing our throwaway tops to the side, adrenaline pumping, you wish the person to your left good luck, your right good luck, in front good luck, and the person behind you say you bloody better not overtake me. The countdown starts and everyone goes silent, the cannon blasts and then looking up thousands of bats are frightened from their roosts and fill the sky.

I have always loved the memory retold by Mrs Lintott in History Boys, as she fondly talks of her time at Durham University. “Durham was very good for history, it’s where I had my first pizza. Other things … And fog, would you believe, one morning inside the cathedral. I loved it.” I have always wanted a Durham Cathedral/fog memory and I think I may have just had one at 5:30am in Durban on 4th June 2017. Shosholoza and N’Kosi Sikelel I Afrika ringing in our ears, spotlights above the crowd, a cannon goes off at the start line and thousands of bats fly from their roosts in the trees and cover the sky.  The stuff of memories.

The Race

It feels like a night race, wide city streets dimly lit with yellow glow, a few locals out and enjoying the spectacle. Runners peeing behind dumpsters and in doorways having skipped using the portaloos around the start. You don’t have far to go, a matter of a couple of blocks, before you leave the city via the first exit ramp up and onto the freeway. You are already climbing. It is still dark on the east coast of Africa and will be for a few hours yet, and it is chilly and crowded. I know that it will thin out eventually, but you hope that it will do so before you are too tired to fall back into your race strategy; mine being a nice simple 2/1 run/walk after about 30K.

The crowd though, was moving too fast, to get into any sort of rhythm you have to dodge to the left and right as people stopped dead and into the walk phase of their own strategy. The sides, the haven for walkers in European races, were the outside lane on the motorway, for the overtakers, and those foolhardy enough in the dark to not care about tripping over cat’s eyes cemented into the asphalt. Many did fall but all got up. A grazed knee at the start is nothing compared to what lies in store for those who keep going.

I don’t remember when the sun actually came up. It was not there then it was everywhere and I was running through small towns on hilly dusty roads with thousands of people. Everyone seemed to be struggling and we had only just started.

Their pace groups are known as “buses.” I kinda like that analogy. And being Africa, the pacer calls out chants, that everyone  calls back. It was akin to the US Military cadences that I used in the past to better my running. Except this was real.

I kept up with the bus for a decent distance before noticing something odd. The flags were out of synch. This was the sub 12:00 bus, but it couldn’t have been as we were ahead of the sub 11, sub 11:30,  and then another sub 12:00 bus. So am hazarding a guess that the 12:00 girl should have had an 11:00 flag.

I wasn’t making good progress. In fact you could barely call it progress at all. I had expected it to be tough, and hence decided to wear my hydration vest. For the most part you do not see them in photos, but on the day I saw a handful of people wearing them too and no one batted an eyelid at mine. Still, as I climbed hill after hill it was apparent that the hydration vest was not needed.

It did not weigh me down. It did not slow me down. And, to be honest, I used the bottles and the SOS Rehydrate but nothing else, not gels, not Mars, one Mint Cream. The water stations are amply stocked with water pouches, Energade (their Lucozade), and Coke (OMG I have never seen so much Coke in my life, thousands of gallons of it, in litre bottles on every table, cups of it, you really could fall into a Coca Cola diabetic coma during this race), and later food. Although I only saw bananas, and not the salted potatoes I had heard so much about.

It was after I hit the second timing mat that my knee, still sore from London (and MK and Two Tunnels) took a turn (literally) for the worse. The pain was sharp. I was only at KM22 and therefore a mere 65 from the end but found a Rescue Bus with a medic in it. She said if I get in I won’t be allowed out again. I weighed up the option and asked if she had any ice. Ice first, then heat right? I distinctly remember my osteo saying ice first, then heat. And the lady obliged with a handful of ice that I put in my hat. I then asked for some gin, tonic and a slice of lemon but she couldn’t oblige me further so I sat on the side of the road using my hat as a makeshift icepack until the ice had all melted and I felt well, or at least the approximation of well, enough to start again.

I ran MK through the pain. Two Tunnels was less so, and only a nippy half. But I could sense my race was already over. My life A Race was being taken away from me. I limped on, but barely made 33KM before I couldn’t go on. I was going to do myself some permanent damage if I did, and I have half a dozen more marathons and an ultra, not to mention Bacchus and Pride coming up. So at 33KM I stopped and sat at the side of the road until another Rescue Bus came along, and this time, I called it a day and climbed on board.

This was a guy who had run 5 comrades and was still to finish one. Another, sitting next to me, had finished 39 and was trying for 40. He had to give up and said it was brutal out there. Another spoke up. He had also run it 5 times and was yet to get a medal. It made me question everything. They run this race year after year but do not finish, especially given what I had been through today that seemed a little crazy at first. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. How many times have you run Comrades? The answer is 5. You have run it 5 times, you just haven’t completed it. Someone later had run it 18 times and never finished. A lady at dinner the night before had run it three times and only finished once. Her husband had completed 15 but missed out on three when he ran with others the whole way. The challenge IS the race, and no matter how far you get, the challenge is there. That is what they were all telling me as the Rescue Bus started on it’s way.

But the bus did not travel as expected. I thought it would diverge off the run route and then speed us to the finish. Nope. It slowly drove up the race route, amongst the runners, stopping often, keeping up with them at times, slower at other times. The runners in the bus, myself included, cheered on all around. We gave timing and distance updates to the runners and walkers. Clubmates of the occupants of the bus were cheered. We handed out water through the windows, gels, Energade.

A lady from a Cape Town club joined us, taking up the last space in the bus. She sat next to me and was not feeling very well. With all the water and Coke, and none of the salty boiled potatoes promised, people were feeling nauseous. She was and so I gave her an SOS Rehydrate. We got her two pouches of water, made it up for her and I told her to sip it. Within five minutes she was fine and we continued our journey.

The End

The buses diverged from the route finally, and thankfully, as am not sure I could have taken any more heartbreak. We got on the motorway and headed to the finish at the race track, where I finally limped off, cramping and beaten after 5 hours of running and 6 hours on two buses witnessing it all in vivid technicolor.

Of course on the 12 hour uninterrupted TV coverage am sure you don’t see the ambulances of unconscious souls, saline drip in arm, hurried paramedics trying to get back onto the road. Or the anguish at the cutoffs. I saw a guy who must have passed out on a fast downhill. He was unconscious and bloody, his head and arms cut open. A lady staying with my superb tour company told me she missed the 68km cutoff! With just 19 to go. That was crushing. And, even if my knee was fine, I am sure I would have been very lucky to get that far and not be bounced into a bus earlier.