Four Spartans Carol & Dave Paul, Kevin Lawlor and Michael Newbitt (aka Badger) recently travelled to South Africa and successfully completed this event.
The race is run over a strenuous course which can be best described by "The Big Five". The Big Five being hills on the route of the Comrades Marathon. Athletes have 12 hours to complete the course with a number of cut-off points along the routes which runners must reach by a prescribed time or be forced to retire from the race.
The race was the idea of World War 1 veteran Vic Clapham to commemorate the South African soldiers killed during the war. Clapham, who had endured a 2 700-kilometre route march through sweltering German East Africa, wanted the memorial to be a unique test of the physical endurance of the entrants. The constitution of the race states that one of its primary aims is to "celebrate mankind's spirit over adversity". It was run for the first time in 1921 and except for a break during World War II, it has been run every year since. The 2008 event was the 83rd race
Dave, Carol and Kevin trained for the event together and went out with a race plan aimed at completing the 55 miles inside the 12 hour time limit. There was no middle ground it was either going to be glorious success or abject failure.
Badger was on a different agenda having recently completed the LDWA 100 mile event in Yorkshire.
The Spartans were joined by two friends on the trip (Dave & Linda Major) and were delighted to report a 100% success with all six comrades completing the course. Dave P said “at the start we said that no-one won unless we all won so it was great at the finish when we found out that everyone had made it, it was even better when we hit the bar later on”.
Over 11,000 runners started the race including 68 from the UK (55 men and 13 women) and from that total number of starters over 2500 failed to finish.
The race started outside Durban town hall at 5.30 am which meant breakfast at 3.30am, and leaving the hotel at 4.00am. Carol said “as we walked to the start through downtown Durban the pubs and clubs were still going strong and the people were coming out to cheer us own our way, we then turned a corner and were almost blinded by the floodlights which lit up the start. We took up our positions and waited, the South Africa anthem was played followed by Chariots of Fire (goose bumps all round) then at 5.30am a cockerel crowed and the race began.”
Dave said “the distance was not the big problem but I underestimated how tough the hills would be and I was constantly aware of the time limit and the cut off points, I’ve ran the Snowdon Marathon but the climbs there are nothing compared to the Big Five. I ran with Kevin for most of the way and we were aiming to run at a steady pace throughout the race and because of this we were near the back of the field early on, we got a fright at one point when we looked behind us and saw an almost empty road. After about 20 miles we started overtaking people and continued to do that right to the finish. At one point about 8 hours into the race we were working out how we were doing and worrying if we would make the finish in time. Kevin’s inspired words which drove me on was “we aint come all this f******g way not to finish “. We caught up with Carol after about 40 miles and although we were all running at our own pace by then we were never far apart right through to the finish. A testament to our steady pace and good training.”
The race finished in the Pietermaritzburg cricket ground which was packed with spectators cheering the runners on. Carol said “the feeling you got when you entered the stadium and ran the final lap with the crowd cheering and knowing you were going to finish made all the hard work worthwhile, crossing the line was a brilliant feeling, we had trained for six months for that moment”.
For the record the Spartans finishing times were Carol Paul 11.36, Dave Paul 11.36, Kevin Lawlor 11.39, Badger 11.07.
All agreed that the race was a great experience; it was really tough but the organisation, the crowd support, the encouragement from fellow comrade runners and the sense of achievement at the finish all go towards the Comrades Marathon being deservedly recognised as the world’s greatest race.
Note: Water really does go down the plug hole the opposite way in the Southern Hemisphere.
