At just over 56 miles and a field of 20,000 the Comrades marathon is the biggest Ultra in the world and is run in South Africa between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. This is my experience of the race they say humbles you and leaves you a different person at the finish to the one who started:
Toeing the line at 5:30 am on Sunday 10th June was the end of a long journey that began 4 years earlier on a Summer’s day in 2014.
That particular day I was in a hospital bed after a heart attack, just back from theatre where I’d had 2 stents fitted in a blocked coronary artery. I thought about my uncertain future. A big goal was to get back running. Was it pie in the sky to think I’d even be able to run again? What was going to be realistic, 5K, 10K, HM?? I promised myself that if ever I recovered enough then I had to run the epic ‘Ultimate Human Race’, the Comrades Marathon.
Fast forward through the tentative slow walks to Dorridge and back. The first walk/jog/walk praying that the dodgy ticker would hold out. Plenty of people had asked me what I would do now instead of running, but I was determined to come back fighting. At last a 5K parkrun, a 10K, and even a HM ticked off before 2014 was out. I was making great progress, much better than I could have hoped for, but in the back of my mind thoughts of Comrades were nagging away and the promise I’d made myself in that hospital bed.
By 2017, despite having run no further than a half marathon since my comeback, I reckoned I was fit enough to realistically think about entering the race. After getting medical advice and a positive comprehensive heart scan, I signed up for the 2018 race and on August 1st, 10 months of hard training began.
Building the mileage through late Summer and Autumn, I battled on through the fog and damp of autumn, the snow and ice of winter, the first few rays of Spring sunshine and finally the odd hot Summer’s day. Two marathons along the way, my first Ultra, and finally, with over 1800 miles under my belt, and 1000 since January 1st, it was time to board the plane for Africa.
I had a fantastic time in the build up to the race, being looked after amazingly by Kevin Boake’s family, the man who had inspired me to want to do this race in the first place. A few days in Johannesburg, then a move down to the lovely seaside resort of Ballito outside Durban for the final preparation. But D-Day was coming! The night before the race was spent bunked up at a friend of the
