Comrades Marathon 2023

An incredible day out at Cowies Hill on my favourite day of the year

In the week leading up to last Sunday’s Comrades Marathon I experienced severe FOMO for not taking part in the Ultimate Human Race. These feelings were only exacerbated by the fact that for the first time in my association with the Comrades I was going to be seconding and not running on race day.

SuperSport has been screening the excellent documentary Down: A Comrades Story in the build up to the race and that has also helped to add to the FOMO. I cried unashamedly three times while watching it, such are the intense emotions that I associate with Comrades. I got goosebumps as Bruce Fordyce, the undisputed King of Comrades, and others described the experience at the start. I dare any South African running Comrades not to shed a tear during Shosholoza and the national anthem. The emotional crescendo of having got to the start line after months of sacrifice and toil on the road always made me teary-eyed as I contemplated the 90kms that lay ahead of me, and the documentary captures the feelings of those pre-race nerves superbly.

Staying on the North coast at Umdloti, I was up in time for the build up and the start of the race at 05:30, as ALL the feelings came flooding back, especially having scrolled through social media with the obligatory kit layout photos from the night before.

The men’s race promised to be hard-fought with several capable contenders, whilst in the women’s section, the race was surely Gerda Steyn’s to lose. The remarkable South African coming into the race as defending champion and with her eyes on a new ‘Down’ run record, made eminently more attainable by the shorter than usual course from Maritzburg to Durban in 2023.

Cowies Hill and the Faku Chiefs Tent

My running club, Faku Chiefs, clearly visible in our bright colours, always set up a tent on Cowies Hill for the Down run, the last of the Big 5 hills in Comrades on the way down to Durban. This year we were approximately 17km from the finish, at a point close enough for runners to start dreaming of the finish once that beast has been dealt with. Coming 70km into the race, it feels somewhat unnecessary at that point!

We were all set up with various treats and cures laid out with about 30 minutes to go before the leading men would be coming past. We were tracking their progress on the incredibly accurate Comrades app, as well as streaming the live feed. And then we heard the first roar of the day from down the hill as the leaders approached the throng of supporters on Cowies. Seeing the leaders skip up that monster climb is really something to behold, and the men’s defending champion Tete Dijana made it look so easy as he breezed past us, with some stiff competition still within touching distance. It didn’t take long for Cowies to claim its first victim as even some of the elite athletes started walking the stretch just past our tent, with forlorn looks on their faces as they felt their desired medals slipping from their grasp. When even those guys battle the daunting climbs, you realise just how tough that part of the race is.

The second (bigger) roar of the day came as Gerda, the new Queen of the Comrades, came hurtling past us, with her typically broad smile and effortless running style carrying her up and over Cowies in what felt like a flash. She is seemingly unbeatable at this stage in her career, and I would love her to have a serious crack at the Olympics marathon in Paris next year!

With the leaders done with Cowies we had one eye on the SuperSport feed as both Dijana and Gerda broke the respective men and women’s records comfortably, a great day for SA road running! Dijana was made to work though, as he was almost overtaken in the finishing straight at Kingsmead by the rather arrogant Dutchman Piet Wiersma. Gerda broke Frith van der Merwe’s 34 year-old record by a whopping nine minutes as she beat fellow South African Adele Broodryk by twelve minutes, an incredible run!

Seconding

It may be uttered tongue-in-cheek, but one of the many Comradesisms is that it can be as tough seconding for someone as actually running the race, with the stress and anxiety of getting in and out of viewpoints, battling traffic and crowds, all while trying to make sure you are at the appointed spot to hand over the secret sauce that each runner needs to get him/her through the daunting course.

Luckily for me, I was stationed at Cowies and would be staying put the whole day as I waited for the four runners I had promised to meet with their various treats. It is difficult to explain how good it feels when you see a familiar face on that route.

First up was Chris, who would take the honour of being the first Faku Chief home. Coming to Comrades with his training mostly being done in the notoriously flat London, the man was flying as he approached Cowies, his estimated finish time seemingly always coming down as I tracked him on the app. I handed him a Bar One as he slowed a bit past the tent, where other Chiefs were on hand for some water on the back and words of encouragement (and disbelief) as he smiled broadly, waving us away as he smashed an amazing PB with a time of 6:19. We are not worthy!

Next to come up Cowies was Jenna, my lovely (and long-suffering) dietician. Incredibly, she had the sniffles on the Wednesday before the race when I saw her in Rondebosch for our appointment. But knowing Jenna, I knew that was not going to stop her from finishing (and smashing) her debut Comrades. I was asked to have the original Pringle’s ready, to be washed down with Cranberry juice. These both went down like a treat as we speedwalked for about 300m to the official photography point where I bade her Godspeed for the last section. Jenna ran an excellent time of 8:07, narrowly missing out on an almost unbelievable sub-8 given her compromised state earlier in the week.

Then it was Dino’s turn, a member of my dinner club in Cape Town. Another novice, he was looking pretty fresh when I joined him halfway down the hill to give him the obligatory Bar One and a concoction of Rehidrat and Eno to see him through to the finish. He was sore but looked to be enjoying his maiden voyage as I wished him well. I was stoked to see him navigate the rest of the course with ease as he ran 8:44, claiming a comfortable Bill Rowan medal for his efforts.

The fourth of my cohort was Sarah, Chris’s wife and another Comrades debutant. I have been following her progress from afar on Strava and have been so impressed by her running progress and never doubted that she would have a great day. In typical Sarah fashion, on seeing the video I took of her on our walk up Cowies, she said she had gone “full retard”, a nod to the brilliant line in the cult classic film Tropic Thunder. Her request included Bovril sarmies and some gummies (not the fun kind). She wolfed down the Bovril rolls and some sweets, grimacing slightly but ready to conquer the last 16 odd kilometres. She sure did, coming home in a brilliant time of 9:32 to get herself an easy Robert Mtshali medal. I couldn’t be prouder, especially when I heard afterwards that she had taken a bad turn just after she saw me. Hopefully we can run at least part of the way together next year Witkop!

Just when I thought my work was done for the day, along came Super, a former running mate from Joburg, with whom I ran the last third of the 2018 race. Without him I doubt I would have finished that race, so I will always owe him a debt of gratitude for that medal. It was so lekker to see him and I walked with him for a couple hundred metres as he gave me a snapshot of his race to that point. He seemed pretty indifferent about his expected finish time, but he ran a very solid 10:11.

With the big 10 and 11 hour buses coming through, the supplies at the Faku tent were quickly depleted and as we packed up there were still thousands of runners streaming past, with the Comrades shuffle in full force as the weary warriors battled their way to Durban.

It was such a fun day, seeing so many familiar faces of both runners and supporters and I will definitely be back in 2024, it is just in what capacity that is still to be determined. I am eager to add to my six Comrades medals by doing one more Down and Up run, even if that means falling agonisingly short of the Green Number Club, the elite group of runners who have completed at least 10 Comrades. Let’s hope in the next couple of years that my eagerness to line up at the Comrades start is matched by my orthopaedic surgeon.

If you have anyone close to you running the Comrades in the future, I would urge you to make the trip to KZN to support at the side of the road. I can guarantee that you will become swept up in the emotion and camaraderie of the day, where one experiences the best traits of humans as the help and support along the route is unmatched in any race around the world.