Gruelling but great
COMRADES runners will not quibble with the ultramarathon’s claim to being the Ultimate Human Race. Not after yesterday, not ever.
But unseen by the television cameras are even more people who might argue that being a supporter on this 90km epic is every bit as exhausting as running it.
So it was yesterday, where spectators drove the route, leapfrogging those they were following.
They manoeuvred, parked wherever they could, walked far and jostled for sight of their competing friends or loved ones.
As Bongmusa Mthembu of Bulwer thrashed a classy field of competitors before morning tea yesterday, winning his third Comrades, supporters were dipping in and out of the route, coping with closed roads, slow queues of traffic – the general Comrades crush.
Ann Ashworth finished 43 minutes later, beating her nearest opponent by more than eight minutes.
But for the intrepid supporters, who might not even have known that, the race was far from over. Theirs went on for hours more – those cheering on other runners had to last three or four hours more.
Others who were looking out for the slower runners dashed about until twilight at Moses Mabhida Stadium yesterday.
Part of spectator strain is the art of actually seeing one’s runner. In the middle and back fields, runners go by five or eight abreast, in a blur of colours and shapes. They pour past. A blink, or a momentary distraction, might thwart the mission.
Then there is the anxiety about the loved one’s condition. Comrades organisers had told one that there were 50 doctors and interns at the Comrades medical facility at the race’s end.
There were also 20 nurses, a mini laboratory, and a threebed, fully-equipped ICU.
This was serious stuff, runners knew it. And their supporters did too.
Then there were all the ambulances en route, flashing reminders of what runners bodies’ were going through.
So intense concern for a runner’s state is part of Comrades, a curse for those watching a loved one.
That worry deepens as the kilometres go by.
As fortune would have it, the weather was good for both runner and spectator yesterday: cool well beyond halfway, with high and lower cloud cover until close to Durban.
It did little, however, to relieve the stress of following a particular runner.
Like runners, though, supporters have their high and low moments. There are enjoyable passages along the way – like seeing a runner smiling and in control; encouraging strangers to run on; or witnessing the costumes and the antics some runners get up to.
There is also the colour and carnival of Comrades: at the halfway mark, Drummond, was a place of hoopla and smiles yesterday. Dancers, singers, juggling footballers and acappella choristers in kilts were a delight.
The runners also seemed to relish the show, looking brisker and lifting their feet a tad higher as they passed through this tunnel of entertainment. After all, they had only done 45km and were relatively fresh.
The hardest metres lay just ahead, on the long climb up to the back of Botha’s Hill.
In the late afternoon at Moses Mabhida, the cacophony was deafening. Runners came in 10-deep, as thousands of spectators somehow found enough energy to clap, ululate, blow horns and scream at passing runners as they neared their triumph.
The sense of sweet achievement on tired runners’ faces seemed to turn up the decibels, encouraging the runners to pick up their pace for that television moment in the stadium.
There is no minimising the pluck required to run the Comrades. It is a huge challenge, a great event.
But spare a thought, too, for the crowds at the roadside who are very much part of that Ultimate Human Race.
Dunn, a Comrades veteran, followed his son, Brendan, on the run yesterday.