COMRADES MARATHON 2010

I lined up this morning being very nervous, Comrades jitters is the actual word. Seeded back in H was interesting to say the least, I could not even see the city hall from back there, I was standing with Adele a friend from the Queensburgh Harriers .

It was not long before we moved up and become part of E seeding. Still it took 9.32 from me to cross the start line. The Comrades song was emotional as was the fact that this is the first one for me, the gun went off and the stop watch started. Right at that point I missed my garmin, I only saw the first km board two kays into the race.

I really had a ball, it was great fun and when Vlam came past I joined in on his bus and found my friend Leighshe. We chatted for quite a few kays and everything working out very well and I was feeling great. We went down pollys and started the climb to Ashburton and right there I had a stomach cramp of note, not good and I just ignored it, it became more and more frequent but I stayed close to Vlam.

By the top of Ashburton road and N3 I could not take it anymore and off in to the bush….10 minutes later I came back out, I have no idea where this came from, seriously no foreign foods, nothing unusual passed through my mouth. Well so be it I started running again and say the bus ahead on one of the straights, I reckoned about 4 or 5 km and I would catch them up, well it started all over again and at Umlaas road back into the bush, another 10 minutes.

Now bearing in mind I have never run this race but know to have any kind of record you must go over the champion chip mats and the first check point was coming up, I knew we had to cross it at 5:10 in the race and there was ample time still to go, then the good day turned into a novice nightmare.

Just ahead they were removing the mats, it was 3:50 seriously we still had till 5:10 to cross, what the hell so I ask a guy who looks like he is in charge and it went like this.

Me: Excuse me we have 5:10 to pass here why you packing up ?

CC: The 12 hour bus has gone past.

Me: So what you telling me to stop or what ?

CC: That is your problem, get out the way now I am very busy here.

I really felt the spirit of the Comrades as did the ten odd runners who were with me at the time. Now we are novices we don’t know what we must do now and no-one is willing or able to give us the necessary info we need. We were debating now what to do when a bail bus came past, the driver asked what was wrong, we told him and he said ignore the idiot go guys. This was rather traumatic for a novice and of course more time lost.

At Harrison Flats we approach the water table, thirsty as hell, we see the tables being cleaned out by kids, the table officials doing absolutely nothing about it, of course none of us received water or coke or anything else.



It was very demoralizing and finally we just realised that we had now lost too much time.

Half way was over a hill and there was only thirty minutes to go, some of the older runners (done more then one run) joined up with us and we spoke about the horrific treatment we had been subjected to, they confirmed that they had never experienced the mats being removed before the cut off

What really sucked was for years I have dreamt about running Comrades, I have seconded runners on this race for nine years but never have I experienced the non spirit of Comrades as I did on this day.

You really got that feeling if you were not in the bus and you were behind it you were nothing at all.