The Comrades Marathon, Sunday 30 May 2010

Race diary by Kenneth Donaldson

This is The Daddy of races. Besides this, all else is knee-height. London, Boston, Berlin marathons, even the venerable New York; all just children. With 85 years of accumulated culture, tradition and history, the Comrades towers over everything. Older, bigger and, at 89.3 kms massively longer, it simply is The Daddy of them all. And what a tradition. To give a single example by way of comparison, consider this: in the London Marathon, everyone who eventually staggers over the line gets a medal, even if it takes days. In the Comrades, you get 12 hours from the starter’s gun – but what’s more – massively more – anyone foolish enough to attempt to cross the line after the 12-hour closing gun has fired, no matter how close to the end they came – is taken down and out by the Springboks’ front row. The national rugby side. Think of it. You’ve just run more than a double marathon, you’ve made the stadium, you have tried to find whatever juice you have to squeeze out those last few steps, you are within inches, the gun goes but you think you can squeak into the winners’ enclosure anyway then Wham! Your 9 stone of exhausted sinew and sweat is taken out by 20 stones of elite, steak- & beer-fuelled 1st class rugby aggression. You do not cross that line, and if you are mad enough to enter again next year, you’ll still be classed as a novice. The countdown to that gun is something to behold, almost Roman in its deliciousness. Not many of our team could bear to watch. Now that’s what I mean by tradition.

But I am rather getting ahead of myself. Why start at the end, even if it’s all I’ve been obsessed about for months? Let’s rewind.

Another example of the power of the Comrades – we alight at Durban and were waiting by outsized baggage for the two rhino suits to appear, which they duly did. Immediately a man walks up and tells us his best mate (Andrew) ran the Comrades in the rhino 12 years ago. We knew that Johnny, one of the charity’s founders, had attempted the Comrades, but the story had been lost, and now, after 12 years, within five minutes of landing, it was found again. Story was, Johnny and two others made the attempt, but after 30kms only Andrew was left going it alone – and he made it. 60 kms in the suit on his own. Apparently he got a police escort to the stadium. Incredible.

Everywhere we went, the place was packed with Comrades runners, all with stories to tell. This race really seems to get under the skin. The average runner is apparently male, 42, and is doing this extraordinary race for the 6th time. Some people have run this thing every year for 40 years. And that means ran it and completed it in the time limit, or you didn’t run it at all.

All of which somehow added to our growing nervousness. That night, after planting some trees with five Miss Earths and the Wildlands Conservation Trust (another story!), we went to a pasta party, hosted by rhino expert and runner with the Hilton Harriers, Richard Emslie. There we met one Jimmy Mallet, a veteran of 24 Comrades, going for his 25th. He had had a couple of years off on account of a small thing known as quadruple heart bypass surgery, plus a major back operation. Would he make his 25th this time, aged 74?

We spend the day before getting nervous and entertaining the hotel guests by practising quick rhino-suit changeovers in the lobby. Cathy had us drilled down to a Formula 1 level of slickness. The other rhino team, led by Gus, nailed the changeover in 23 seconds, and our best was a respectable 31. Now surely we were ready for anything. I had done over 1,000 miles running, through 3-foot snow drifts, up hills, along canals, lugging rucksacks, training, training, training for this damned race, and just wanted it to happen.

So, after a surprisingly good night’s sleep, the 10 of us were up at 3:45 am and picked up by the incredibly kind Andrew Venter, MD of Wildlands Conservation, at 4:30 am, to be ferried close to the line. Already the streets of Pietermaritzburg were crowded. 23,000 people were converging on the start line. The Chariots of Fire music was in the cold morning air. The banter in the van was surprisingly light, and mostly directed at Sam, a New Zealander in the other rhino team. (Someone asked what the collective noun for rhinos was. A crash. Someone else volunteered a journey of giraffes. Gus suggested a jail of kiwis. You get the gist.)

At 4:45 we stuffed Rob into the rhino and moseyed on up to our pen, half a mile back from the start line. I don’t remember a lot about the next 45 minutes, but all of a sudden there was the sound of a rooster, an enormous cheer, then the gun went off. We shuffled forwards, and 11 minutes later, the road opened, we crossed the line and we were running. Four seconds later, we juddered to a halt. We were in fact trying not to trample some poor lady in very considerable distress who had clearly done her knee, standing on a plastic bottle or something. It turned out later she’d actually broken her leg, within five yards of the start line. My heart goes out to her.

Rob set a good steady rhino pace, roughly seven minutes per kilometre, or 11 minutes a mile. May not sound like much, but believe me, in a rhino suit that’s speedy, especially if you have to keep it up literally for 11 hours. Gradually it got lighter, and the views got more and more impressive. Views of hills. Hills that thousands and thousands of people in front of us were running up. Steep hills. 89 kilometres or 56 miles on the flat is one thing, but it seems there is no flat between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Just hills. Steep ones.

Four kms in and my calf muscle went. I had pinged it two weeks earlier, badly, and ever since had been limping round like a bad actor trying out for Quasimodo. I had hoped that it might hold, but… However, I soldiered on, and miraculously after 10 minutes the pain dissipated.

Two hours in the suit, plus 45 minutes hanging around at the start, and Rob was now cooked, so we let him out. Our F1 changeover technique went straight down the pan, and it took an extended bout of solid faffing to get Steph swapped in and her numbers pinned to the rhino. Then off she went.

Because we had lost 11 minutes just getting to the start after the gun, and yet more on the suit change, we were keen to make up time, although rationally, this was not the section to do it. We had put Steph into the suit on arguably one of the toughest, hilliest sections of the course. She put her foot to the metal. Occasionally we’d hear a muffled cry from inside the rhino, a tiny voice saying “How am I doing for pace?” “Fine! Keep it up!” we boys would cry, and shout to the crowds in front “Make way for our rhino”. In the end, after 1 hour 45 minutes of pure slog, we let her out. She’d averaged an incredible 6:45 minutes per kilometre, the fastest speed we did any section of the course, just as the heat got serious, on the hilliest part of the route.

As Steph was belting it out, an old Afrikaner drew up alongside me. The Comrades has a brilliant running number system, with not only your Christian name, but a number in the corner telling the world how many Comrades you had competed, and whether you got gold (top 10), silver (under 7½ hours), bronze (under 11 hours) or just a finishers’ medal. (just!!!) This old boy was on his 16th run. He says “Jeez, that’s some tough guy, hey”. I just nod, as I reckon if he knew it was a girl rhino that had just overtaken him, he might break altogether.

Next up, Steve. He sets off up yet more hills. By now we’ve been running for nearly four hours. It’s getting seriously hot. The crowds are incredible. The noise is deafening at times. Typically you hear “Oh my God, it’s a rhino! I don’t believe it.” This would usually be from a nice middle-class type, standing on the roadside with a glass of bubbly and a picnic. Then again, you hear little groups of people singing traditional songs like the beautiful Shosholoza. Which appropriately enough is a work-gang song meaning “go forward” or “make way”, and sounds like a steam train. Anyway they’d be singing away, maybe three large ladies, when all of a sudden, they’d see the rhino, and they’d stop singing and just start literally screaming at the top of their voices. The noise would be earsplitting. This more vocal support tended not to come from the middle-class types.

Steve never lets up the pace. Even if he walks a bit, he’s still going faster than pretty much all the runners around us. I have to jog to keep up with his walking. It is an unrelenting pace, and it takes us past the “11 hour bus”. This is a group of people all following a man who carries a flag and promises to bring them into the stadium after exactly 11 hours. He chants “easy, easy, easy” as he runs. He lies, clearly. He is followed by a clump of maybe 300 runners, all of whom must passionately hate him.

We finally get just over the halfway mark, about 45 kilometers still to go, and a little ahead of that damned 11 hour bus. It’s a little after 11 am. When he comes out, Steve is drenched in sweat. His legs are still good, but he’s dangerously overheating. As Gus would say, he’s sweating like a Kiwi in a spelling-bee. But we are on track for the 11-hour mark, which would earn us not just a finisher’s medal, but a coveted bronze medal. This is better than I could have hoped for. However, we are now starting to feel it. We have done more than a marathon, and have more than a marathon to go. And more hills.

Phil gets jammed into the suit. The suit now has its own micro-climate and alien life forms are breeding in there. The smell would make an Aussie sheep-dipper blush.

The weight, heat and smell prove too much for Phil, and the bloody 11-hour bus overtakes us again. Mr Easy heads off into the distance as we get Phil out after just 3 or 4 kms. He looks like death and we are now down to four runners as Phil can hardly stand up, let alone run through this heat. We have miles and miles to go and we have lost time.

I strap into the suit, and take aim at the bus. I hit a hill that goes on and on and on. At the top I actually get some small breeze that manages to get into the suit, which is a relief that takes my mind off the extraordinary pain in my ankle. Fortunately however the calf muscle seems to be holding. Heavy strapping and drugs will work for most things, I reckon.

I ask to be changed out, again, more because of the heat than the legs. We can’t risk anyone keeling over with heatstroke which is now a real possibility. Phil’s out and Rob’s also past suit carrying, but Steph puts her hand up, or at least fails to say no quickly enough. It’s early afternoon, and properly hot. She’s already done a massive stint, she’s never done an ultra, her IT band muscles are causing her serious knee pain, and she’s a newcomer to running in the suit. And in the suit she goes. In fact she positively disappears. No one can say that girl doesn’t have heart.

Very soon, as I am jogging on a little ahead, Steve catches me up and tells me it was not such a clever idea to put Steph back in. She’s in bits. We pull her out, in tears. The extra weight is destroying her knee and the pain must be immense. I can only hope that once the weight is off, the pain will go, as this is the same pattern with my ankle. If not, she’s out of the game, because there’s still 28 kms to go.

So, it’s now down to Steve and me. As I have just come out, he volunteers to go back in. In fact, we agree to quarter what’s left, in stints of 7 kms. As per, he slots straight back into his incredible 7 minute per kilometre pace and we all try to keep up. Happily, once relieved of the extra weight, Steph is back to form, and running nicely. Rob also looks pretty good.

My turn. Another 7 kms. I keep up a good pace, but it’s beginning to tell. It’s now not just heat, it’s actual exhaustion setting in. My legs are OK, but I am desperately tired. I just want to slow to a walk, but if we do, the 11-hour target will fall. I cannot tell you how much I want to slow down, walk a bit. But if I do that, maybe, whisper it, the other rhino might catch us up and that’s so not going to happen.

Steve’s turn. What a relief to be out. Steve maintains his pace. He is truly incredible, that man. He’s actually, literally, made of titanium. I have absolutely no idea how he does it. I thought, in all modesty, I was the strong man of the team, and here I am coasting beside him, and we’re actually overtaking people. And astonishingly, out of nowhere, Phil appears. He’s not dead. He’s somehow hung on in there. He looks totally out of it, but from somewhere he’s found enough reserves to keep pegging on.

Steve does his 7 kms and an extra one for fun. (What? How?) I am now seriously, seriously tired, but there’s only 6 kms to the finish. We have run 83kms so far.

I get in the suit and shout to Steve for a time check. He says if we hold 7 minutes per km, we will miss 11 hours by five minutes. This basically destroys me, and I slow down to 9 minutes per km. Looking back, I think if I had realistic hope of making the 11 hour bronze medal mark, I might have found enough to thrash it out to the line. But I really didn’t have much by way of reserves, so that’s probably wishful thinking.

I get to 2kms to go, and slow down to a walk. I want something for a grandstand finish – after all, the climax to this 89km of torture is a stadium reception, with thousands of people cheering and an entire nation watching on live TV. You’ve got to give it some.

We hit the stadium 11 hours and 20 minutes after the gun went off. As the rhino comes into view, the stadium goes ballistic. I have never heard anything like it. Adrenaline floods my system and I start charging around, banging the costume’s head like a drum. But I had forgotten you have to do a whole lap before the line. About three-quarters of the way round, I think my head’s going to explode. I can no longer see, or breathe, or anything. God alone knows how I kept running that last 100 metres. I truly thought I was going to die, live on TV.

We round the last bend I see the finishing tape. I am alive. I am in a rhino suit. I am in a line, holding hands with four extraordinary people. We have carried a 12 kgs burden – that’s two stone of rhino suit – through the African heat, through the Valley of a Thousand Hills, down from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. We’ve beaten the 12-hour cut off. In fact, we’ve beaten 1,000s of runners. We place 10,590th out of a field of 23,000 entrants. By the 5:30 pm cut off, the total number of finishers would be 14,596. Would the other rhino be amongst them?

A journalist rushes up for an interview. He wants me to get back in the suit. I tear his head off, and kick it into the crowd. No I don’t. But I am not getting back into that suit. The adrenaline-fuelled sprint finished me. Now I am empty of adrenaline and empty of energy. Now I am having a seriously difficult time standing up. In fact, now I am curled in a ball on the ground.

We do a couple of interviews. A journalist says to Steph, “As the rose amongst the thorns, will you do this again?” She tears his head off, and kicks it into the crowd. No she doesn’t. She actually smiles, goes all cute and coy, and says “Never say never”. I fall over.

Dave Dixon, the Chairman of the Comrades’ race himself, comes up to us and congratulates us all. I feel like a proper hero.

As if by magic, Andrew Venter re-appears. The man who was up at 3 am, to ferry us to the start, symmetrically appears at the end. He and his Wildlands Conservation Trust team, a charity which partners with Comrades, have spent the last two days planning 23,000 trees – one per runner. This man seems to have boundless energy. Maybe he’d like to wear the suit… But, for now, better than that, he carries it for us, away from the finish line, and helps us to the Hilton Harriers’ runners’ enclosure.

Immediately we get word that the other rhino has made it. They were only minutes behind us. Soon, we hear their story. Chris and Dan did early stints, but Dan’s hip was causing excruciating pain and the broken foot that the 18-stone man-mountain, Chris, sustained while kick-boxing (don't ask) has slightly dented his training programme. This leaves Sam, Gus and JP to bring it home. Seems at one point they got close to being swept up by the back-marker wagon, whereupon Sam got a serious hoof-on and they finish with 12 minutes to spare. Characteristically, all of them point to the others as being the real heroes, whilst, equally characteristically, keeping up an impressive level of sledging and mickey-taking.

We listened to the crowd in the stadium roaring the countdown to 12 hours. It really is like ancient Rome, and we really cannot bear to watch. The man fires his gun, and thousands and thousands of runners, all achingly close, might as well have not started.

Then, miraculously, Dan appears. The others had had to leave him as the man could hardly walk for pain. And yet, he’s managed, God alone knows how, to finish the course. He’s outside the time, but even still, he’s gritted his teeth and finished it. Seems some race marshall tried to pull him off the road at some point. Said race marshall is currently still looking for his head, it having been ripped off and kicked into the crowd. This time, I am not joking.

The stadium lights finally go out, so we take the hint, find the hotel, and order the first round of 20 beers. It’s time to re-hydrate.

This is The Daddy of races. One last word on the Comrades’ traditions. The day after running 89 kms (winning time 5 hours 29 minutes – do what?) there’s a 100-metre sprint on the beach at noon for all the finishers. Picture it. Most competitors can’t even walk, and yet they haul ass down to the beach and attempt a 100-metre sprint. Pure Laurel and Hardy. You couldn’t make it up.

Ten of us, plus two rhino suits, are now a tiny little part of the folk-lore of this race. We have raised some good money to help towards a truly vital task, because if the protection was lifted, there’d be no rhinos left anywhere in the world within the year. Even with intensive monitoring and protection, this is a hard battle. The park we visited post-race lost another rhino, the day after we were there, shot, dehorned while still alive, with its hamstrings slashed so it couldn’t move.

So I ask you, give it up for Sam, Gus, Chris, Dan, JP, Robert, Steph, Steve and Phil, and if you have not yet put your hand in your pocket, here’s the link.

With grateful thanks to Hilary, the guys at Quatro pensions, Joc, James, Ian, Robert, Ritchie B, Graham, Jeni, Shaunagh, my folks and everyone whose support and repeated kindness has kept and continues to keep me going. Lecker, as they say in South Africa.

(Jimmy didn’t make it in the end. He bowed out after 75 kilometres. He’ll be back next year, and my money’s on him making it. He’ll then be 75.)

Kenneth
6 June 2010