Big up to the brave runners who take on Comrades Marathon
When I am asked if I have ever run the Comrades, I reply: “Yup. My best time is a 5.25… on the back of the media truck.” It’s a joke that usually doesn’t get as many laughs I want, but then, the Comrades is no laughing matter. Well, it is if you aren’t running it.
I have covered five or six Comrades from the back of the media truck. It’s been a while since I’ve headed down the N3 for the race, with the obligatory stop at the Nottingham Road brewery to contemplate the week ahead.
These days I watch it from the comfort of home on the SABC, through the murk of a television feed that has at times looked as though it is shot on a dirty cellphone lens.
But things change and the SABC is a new place these days. I am sure that cellphone lens has been cleaned since the cloudy one was sent packing.
I have never run the Comrades. I have no intention of doing so. It’s a mad thing. I’ve seen people unable to walk for days afterwards. Friends have told me of getting into the bath after the race and not being able to get out, stuck there until the turn-down service arrives in their hotel room. I’ve seen people lying on the grass at the Scottsville race course in Pietermaritzburg at the end of the race, like the walking dead pinned to the ground.
As I write this, on SABC 1’s Thomas Mlambo is interviewing a man who is taking part in the race on crutches. He will start at midnight before the official 5.30am start with his running partner, who is convinced he will make it. I hope he does.
Covering the race is, obviously, not as hard as running it, but it is tough. The build-up is as manic as the day of the event. Mr Price used to throw an impressive prerace party for the media to mix with their team’s athletes, who were, in those days, mostly Russian.
Ray de Vries was the man behind that team. De Vries now sells machines that make water from air. The Russians used to run like they were on air, nigh on untouchable. We always wondered about those east Europeans, coming in hot from the cold of their countries, far away from prying eyes.
I would seek out the casual runners before the race, although, the term “casual runner” is, as Billy Connolly once made clear, as ridiculous as “casual sex”. There is nothing casual about the Comrades.
I would find people running for their loved ones, both alive and dead. The expo is the very place to bump into them.
One year, I spoke to a man who had gone to see a podiatrist at the expo, complaining that his feet hurt in his shoes. He had even had special inserts made.
The podiatrist looked inside the shoes, took out the inserts, and swapped them around. The runner had the left insert in the right shoe.
Businesses flock to the Comrades to sell products, but a friend in sponsorship wonders if the race organisers are doing enough to leverage the data they get: “They had 23,500 entering the race last year, so since September they have known the names, e-mails, phone number, age, weight, medical aid, sex, where they live, the shoes they run in — they have an incredible amount of data on a Comrades entry form.
“Have they done enough to put them in touch with sponsors? Of this 23,000, say 4,000 are looking at buying a new car. That data is invaluable.”
They also know that the 23,000 who entered are people who live a life less ordinary. It’s a mad, mad race, a day of pushing hard, finding limits, managing expectations and pushing through physical and mental barriers so tough they can seem insurmountable.
I’ll wake up early on Sunday and turn on the telly. I’ll watch and cheer quietly, and look out for a man on crutches who will be using his arms to do something I am not brave enough to do with my legs.