Comrades - Training, Pacing, and Fueling

Training
My training plan was developed by my friend and coach Mary Holt-Wilson of TriMoxie. She blended the plan from Hal Higdon that I used when I ran the Rocky Raccoon 50-mile trail run in 2006 with the official one from the Comrades web site, and added her own ideas to create one that suited me and my schedule. The primary focus was using back-to-back long runs on the weekend to build endurance and get me used too running on tired legs. Mileage built from 40 miles a week for most of January, February and March to 50-55 miles a week in April and early May, with the long runs typically 2.5-3.5 hours on Friday and 2-3 hours on Saturday. My peak long run week was the first week of May and culminated with 2 hours on Thursday and 4 hours on Friday. Monday and Wednesday were usually easy runs of an hour or so, Tuesday was up to an hour and a half including 30-40 minutes of hill repeats, and Sunday and Thursday were rest days.

Three races formed an important part of my training. First up was the Dubai marathon in January. I used that as my official qualifier for Comrades (everyone must run a marathon under five hours in order to be an official Comrades entrant), and while I didn't hit the 3:45 I was hoping for, my time of 4:05 is still pretty good. Next up was the Wadi Bih 50k run in early February, 25 km up a mountain in Oman and then back down. Great practice for fueling, running on rolling terrain, and climbing and ascending steep hills, not to mention getting accustomed to running long distances. The third race was a 50k night race here in Doha in early March. It was 10 laps of a 5 km loop on cobblestones, only good for fueling, mental toughness, and running long distances when tired, which, really, are things you need to be good at when doing something like Comrades.

My monthly mileage was:
Jan - 128
Feb - 105
Mar - 143 (including ten days of no running while on vacation)
Apr - 205
May - 146

Another key component of my training was yoga. I took classes several times a week, the most important ones of which were my wife Heather's on Monday and Wednesday nights. She develops a new lesson plan for each class and always incorporates a lot of core work and hip flexibility/stretching poses, two things that were absolutely critical for me a) getting to the starting line injury-free, and b) getting across the finish line without having that feeling of total exhaustion, the one that comes when your core gets overworked and tired, at any point during the race.

Pacing
My plan for the race was pretty simple: run at a comfortable pace whenever possible, walk or power walk the steeper hills when necessary, and be gentle on the downhills to protect my quads for later. The plan worked beyond my wildest dreams. I never felt exhausted, never hit the kind of low points that I did during Two Oceans last year, and ran a very strong second half of the race. Here are my placings at the timing mats during the race. I'm thrilled with how steady I stayed while much of the field was slowing down around me. Nice to see that I ran all of the second half intervals faster than the many of the people who finished in front of me. Being conservative at the beginning paid huge dividends at the end. I'm also extremely proud of the basically even split for the race. 5:17 for the first half and 5:23 for the second is pretty damn good. Most of those 426 people I passed in the last 7 km were in the 11-hour bus.

location	time	speed	o/a	sex	cat	split	speed	o/a	sex	cat	time of day
17,50 km Lion Park	2:00:18	6:53 min/km	8128	7158	2639	2:00:18	6:53 min/km	8263	7265	2680	07:30:19
44,97 km Halfway	5:17:23	7:04 min/km	8754	7530	2770	3:17:06	7:11 min/km	9181	7716	2819	10:47:24
58,27 km Winston Park	6:58:07	7:11 min/km	7786	6679	2452	1:40:44	7:35 min/km	5628	4710	1718	12:28:07
71,00 km Cowies Hill	8:25:30	7:08 min/km	6797	5837	2130	1:27:24	6:52 min/km	3946	3356	1201	13:55:31
82,28 km Mayville	9:52:01	7:12 min/km	6414	5471	2020	1:26:31	7:41 min/km	4645	3803	1421	15:22:01
89,28 km Durban	10:40:14	7:11 min/km	5988	5113	1899	48:14	6:54 min/km	3677	3087	1149	16:10:15

Fueling
I began to focus on my fueling a week before the race, slowly reducing my intake of the spicy foods I love to eat and replacing them with bland and easy to digest carbs. Friday was a big breakfast after our easy morning run; chicken enchilada and rice for lunch; Italian for dinner (foccacia, calimari, ham, pasta, pesto, etc.).
Saturday - huge breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast. Light-ish dinner of pasta and potatoes. Lots of water and Powerade all day. Two tablets of high-test Imodium in the latter half of the day.
Sunday - Clif bar and half a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast at 3am, along with one last Imodium. I sipped Powerade until getting in the shuttle at 4. I started out with a gel and a salt tab every hour. 1-2 sachets of water at each water stop starting around 10-15 km. Only 1-2 sachets of Energade the whole race (it’s pretty foul compared to Powerade and Gatorade). I grabbed salted potatoes whenever I found them being offered by the aid stations or by the spectators along the route. 2-3 water sachets per water stop the second half of the race (stops along the entire route were ~2 km apart). I took another salt tab and a gel or 3 bloks if an hour had gone by without any potatoes. I had to stop to pee twice (10-15 km in and maybe 70 km in) and use the porta-potty once (at 30 km or so). Along with my conservative pacing strategy, my fueling plan helped keep me strong through the end of the race. I was tired, of course, but never felt like I had run out of energy in my body, mind, or legs.

Comrades Marathon Race Report

Race Day

This was it, the day I'd been working and training and looking forward to for what seemed like forever. And I was right, the alarm rang (really, the iPhone emitted some lovely electronic tones) way too early. I was already awake, as I had been for a while. Even with taking melatonin, I didn’t get much sleep, maybe 3-4 hours or so. I wasn't all that nervous, though I guess my brain just didn't want to slow down and relax. Once I got up, I popped my last pill, ate my breakfast (Clif bar and half of a peanut butter sandwich), started sipping on my Powerade, and made a few trips to the bathroom to try to make sure I was as empty as possible. Holly was doing the same thing, and it was pretty humorous. We looked like little kids just learning to be potty trained – into the bathroom, back out, wait ten minutes, lather, rinse, repeat. I'm not sure it was helping any, but it gave us a way to occupy our time and procrastinate before gearing up. I applied as much BodyGlide as I possibly could to any and all areas and body parts that might chafe during the run, stuck my trusty Band-aids on my chest, put on my clothes, grabbed the drop bag, and went down to the lobby to find the shuttle.

As expected, the shuttle was there at 330 but not really planning to leave any time soon. We sat in the lobby for a bit, moved ourselves to the van, and sat some more. I took advantage of the delay for one more trip to the restroom (success!). Back in the van, no one was saying much. I think we were all in our own space trying to mentally prepare for the day's adventure. The driver did have the music blasting, though. Nothing like Will Smith's Gettin' Jiggy Wit It at 4am before a race.

The trip to the start was as easy as could be. Coming from the northern side of PMB, there was no traffic at all, and we were dropped off about 200 meters from the starting area about 15 minutes after we left the hotel. Holly, Erin, and I said goodbye to Tee and Scott (they were in different corrals than we were), brought our drop bags to the trucks, and entered corral F. I was shocked at how few people were there with an hour to go before the 530 start. Not only was our corral empty, all the other ones were too, and there was no real line at the porta-pottys. We worked our way to the front of the corral and started keeping an eye out for Wendy. The plan was to meet her at the front left corner of corral F. She has a green number signifying that she has finished at least 10 Comrades, so we figured she'd enter corral E, the green number corral, and step under the rope to join us. As we watched for Wendy, the trickle of runners walking past the corrals to bag drop and the entrances to F, G, and H turned into a flood. Arriving at the start before the buses from Durban began discharging thousands of runners was definitely a good thing and helped keep us relaxed and calm. And speaking of bag drop, people were certainly taking advantage of the race not requiring an official bag be used. I saw giant duffel bags, backpacks, and even a few wheeled suitcases being hauled over to the trucks.

With about 25 minutes left before the start, everyone in our corral suddenly stood up. We followed suit without really knowing why or what was happening. A few seconds later, the ropes between the corrals dropped and everyone surged forward toward the start line. With a firm 12-hour gun-to-gun time limit for the race, the closer you are to the line, the less time you lose before actually starting. I'm not really a fan of gun time limits because the people who need the most time to finish lose the most getting across the line. Historically, the runners in the last corral, corral H, take 8 minutes or more to cross the line, meaning they really only have 11:52 in which to run the distance, not 12 hours.

Now pushed forward to what used to be corral C and packed in like a mosh pit, we pretty much gave up on trying to find Wendy. It was just too crowded to spot her unless she was within about 10 feet of us. We were on our own, and I was oddly okay with that. James, Wendy, Emile, and Keith gave us lots of advice about the course, the race, and how to manage them in the days and weeks before the race, and I knew that if I trusted my training and kept their advice in mind, I'd be fine. Holly and Erin didn’t seem too concerned either, though we all knew we'd have more peace of mind having Wendy with us.

Five minutes before the start, it was time to ditch my throw-away clothes, retie my shoes, and get myself ready to run. There were so many people picking up the tops and pants being tossed over the fence of the corral that I don't think my lovely grey PJs hit the ground for more than a second or two before being snatched up. Then came the singing of the South African national anthem (all three verses in all three languages) and Shosholoza. What an amazing moment. Tens of thousands of runners and spectators all proudly singing along with each other with a passion I've rarely seen elsewhere except for the Boston Garden after the marathon bombing last year. Truly, truly special and inspiring. In the silence after the songs, I heard the guys next to us talking about the cock crowing and getting on with the race. Sure enough, a minute or so later, the silence was broken by someone at the start letting out a huge cock crow sound. I thought that was the start of the race and pushed the Start button on my Garmin. No one was moving, so I hit Stop. Two seconds later, the gun went off, I hit Start again, and the race, at least for those up front, was underway. The rest of us were still shuffling toward the line. About three and a half minutes later, we crossed the line, heard the beep from the timing mat, and were on our way. Durban or bust, 89 km to go.

The first few miles were gently uphill. We didn't have a problem holding our pace back because the huge field of runners was running at pretty much the same pace. We couldn't have gone any faster if we had wanted to, not that Holly didn't try. When she feels fresh and eager to run, she likes to push the pace. My job for the first third of the race was to keep her in check. There's a saying at Comrades that for every minute you go too fast in the beginning, you pay for it 10x in the end. That's not something I wanted to test the truth of, so I pulled her back when needed.

About a mile and half along, we came across a guy dressed in a rhino costume running to raise money for rhino conservation in Africa. The guy next to him was carrying the costume's head, and we heard them talking about trying to find volunteers who would each carry the head, which weighed a few kilos, for one kilometer during the run. Just as I was about to stick my hand out and hold the head for the next km, Erin read my thoughts and in no uncertain terms told me "John, no. You are not carrying that head."

We ran along in the dark enjoying the cool temperatures (it was in the low 50s at the start) and dodging road furniture (curbs, traffic medians, etc.) when after half an hour or so, the route took a sharp bend to the left. As we turned the corner, the three of us had a collective "WTF are we doing?" moment. We could see a solid stream of runners across the way making their way slowly up a hill that looked to us to be gigantic. In reality, this section of the course was only about half a mile long, dropping 60 feet from where we made the turn, and then climbing 100 feet on the other side. Not exactly a huge hill, but in the darkness at the very beginning of our first Comrades, it was enough to make us wonder what all the truly big hills would be like.

In the small neighborhoods leaving Pietermaritzburg, the local residents lined their front lawns and cheered for us as we went by. Most of them looked like they were going to head back to bed as soon as the tail end of the field passed by, but more than a few were starting the party early. I think it was about 640am when I spotted the first drinkers with what appeared to be whiskey and coke. I'm not sure that was any more appealing than my first gel, which I had taken along with a salt tab just a few minutes before. Erin had needed a bathroom break, a perfect opportunity for a quick pee and some refueling.

Our first real descent came on the back side of Polly Short's, about six miles in. 700 feet down in just over a mile. The sun was barely starting to light the sky, and we could see the mist of the peaks and valleys all around us. As we reached the bottom, I heard a familiar and welcome voice yell my name. I turned around stunned and amazed to see Wendy catching up to us. Turns out she had entered corral F from the back and not the front. Once the race started, she guessed correctly that we were in front of her and kept moving along until she spotted my red sparkle skirt. Yes, sometimes dressing silly for a race does come in handy. Needless to say, we were very happy to see her and spent the slow jog up the next hill chatting about all that had happened so far in the race and what was coming up next.

Next was a short descent down the back of Little Polly's into a pretty little valley, across a small river, and then onto the long climb towards the highest part of the route. With the sun now well up over the horizon, I finally ditched my hat and my long sleeve top. I downed my second gel and salt tab right on schedule, but quickly realized i should have waited another five minutes. The road made a 90-degree right turn into a stiff wind carrying the foul stench of the local chicken farms. The urge to vomit during a race has never been so strong. It was a long quarter of a mile before the road turned left and I could breathe deeply again.

It was in this section where I noticed Erin beginning to have trouble staying at an even pace. She would be right with us, then stop to walk, and then run to catch up again. Holly and I would keep moving on slowly, and Wendy, bless her heart, would go back for her and pull her up to us. Eventually, Holly and I told Wendy we needed to keep running. She said she's go back for Erin and to wait for them at a gas station a few miles up the road, at the end of what's called Harrison Flats. We looked at our watches to see when that would be and couldn't believe we'd covered 18 miles already. The first three hours had flown by and I was feeling great. The sun was out but behind the clouds, the breeze was keeping things cool, and the previous aid station offered salted potatoes so I was able to grab a handful of them for fuel instead of using another gel.

When Holly and I got to the gas station just before mile 22, we were in total agreement that the Flats were not flat and that they are best described by a South African runners' guide as the graveyard section, a singularly barren stretch between the undulating grassland behind and the Valley of a Thousand Hills ahead. I took advantage of the wait for Erin and Wendy to catch up to make a bathroom run, and a few minutes later, we were on our way again.

Four hours in, we ran past the Ethembeni Home. It's a school for mentally and physically challenged children who come out onto both side the road to cheer and yell and scream for the runners as we pass by. This is one of the highlights of their year, and shaking their hands and slapping high fives with them did as much to lift their spirits as it did mine.

I found this on the Internet from Comrades a few years ago

I found them to be a wonderful source of inspiration as we approached Inchanga, the first really big hill of the day. Not that the others had been small, but Inchanga is a beast. You climb 300 feet in 1.5 miles on the way up and descend 450 feet in another 1.5 miles into Drummond and the halfway point. At the start of the climb, Holly took off power walking (she's a machine at that), Wendy and I alternated walking and running, and Erin was a little bit behind us. Wendy, Holly, and I agreed to meet at the top across from the Comrades sign and wait for Erin.

When I arrived at the top, I found Wendy standing on the side of the road, but Holly was nowhere to be found. I knew she wasn't behind me and told Wendy I was going to continue on to find her. Wendy said she was going to wait for Erin, and I had a feeling that was the last time I'd see either of them until the finish. As I set off down the hill, I could hear the crowds of Drummond in the distance and hoped that Holly was somewhere between here and there waiting for me. I stayed to the righthand side of the road where the camber of the road was not as sharp and kept my eyes peeled for Holly. The road was thick with runners, so finding her was not going to be easy or even very likely. Just as I was resigning myself to running the next 50 km alone, I happened to glance to the other side of the road, glimpsed a flash of red sparkle, and saw Holly standing there. Had I looked over 5 seconds earlier or later, I never would have seen her. I told her Wendy was behind us waiting for Erin. We stood there waiting for the amount of time it took me to eat a gel, at which point we made the decision to press on together without them. Kind of selfish, I know, because we'd planned on running as a group of four all day, but neither Holly nor I wanted to jeopardize our chances of finishing. At some point, you just have to go and run your own race. I felt bad about leaving them behind, but I knew they'd understand.

The atmosphere in Drummond is electric. Thousands and thousands of people line the route cheering, yelling, and screaming in support of the runners. Many of them are also handing out sliced oranges, salted potatoes, pieces of banana, chocolates, and all kinds of other goodies they know we need. Not only is this the halfway point, it's also where the first major cutoff occurs. You need to be across the timing mat in Drummond by 11:30am, six hours into the race, the thinking being that if you can't make it halfway in half the official race time, you'll never be able to negative split enough to get to the finish before the gun goes off. We crossed at 10:47 for a first half time of 5:17. Doubling that and adding time for slowing down, we figured we were looking at a finish somewhere between 11 and 11:30. Not the sub-11 we'd be hoping for, but still safely under 12 hours with plenty of cushion in case something went drastically wrong during the second half.

Climbing out of Drummond, I felt like I was a rider in a mountain stage of the Tour de France. The crowds were that big and that excited and that packed in on the road. There was barely enough room for us to run next to each other, and it was awesome. I needed that energy to drag myself up yet another hill. For a "down" run, there sure was a lot of running up. This was definitely the prettiest part of the route. Mountains and hills and valleys all around, as far as the eye could see. Along this stretch, we saw people grabbing wild flowers from the side of the road and stopping briefly a little farther on. We had reached Arthur's Seat, a spot where the ghost of Arthur Newton, a famous Comrades runner, is said to live. Arthur apparently used to stop and smoke his pipe at this location before continuing on with the race. That wouldn't work well for me, but the guys won the race five times, so maybe he was on to something. Legend says that if you greet him and leave a flower, he'll ensure you a strong second half. We didn't have any flowers but made sure we said hello and touched his plaque for good luck.

Shortly after leaving Arthur's Seat, the 11-hour bus passed us by. It's not really a bus. It's a group of runners led by experienced pacers with the intention of finishing the race in under 11 hours. They call it a bus because of the size of the group. Whereas a typical pace group for a regular marathon might have a few dozen or even a hundred runners following along, the buses for Comrades have hundreds if not thousands of people, with the 11-hour and 12-hour buses being the largest. Sub-11 is a key finishing time for Comrades. It's the traditional finishing time before they expanded the field and added an extra hour to the race in 2003. Many experienced Comrades runners, especially the South Africans, still view 11 hours as the time to beat. Watching the bus pass us by was a bit depressing because we knew we had the ability and had trained well enough to get in under 11.

We soldiered on up Botha's Hill and began a wicked descent into Hillcrest, dropping over 500 feet in not even 1.5 miles. At the bottom, as we entered Hillcrest, we passed the 33 km sign. The markers for this race show how many kilometers you have left to go, and seeing this one was a huge mental checkmark for us. It meant we'd covered the same distance we had run at Two Oceans last year (56 km) in only 12 more minutes. Now we knew we'd be able to finish so long as we kept moving forward at at least a 15 min/mile pace. Or so we thought. For two MBA grads, we were having a hard time with math at this point. Converting from km into miles was hard enough. We then had to figure out how much time we had left for an 11:30 finish and a 12-hour finish, divide that by the miles we thought we had converted, and come up with some sort of a pace, all before the next km maker sign showed up and we had to start over again. We kept coming up with paces ranging from 12 to 16 min/mile and were never really sure which one was right.

Hillcrest is where I finally felt like I was running downhill. The slope was gentle, maybe 2-3%, but it was definitely downhill. Our pace was definitely strong and determined during the next four or five miles as we knocked them down between 10:30-11 min/mile.

Now it was Holly's turn to ask for a bathroom break, so we stopped at the next port-potties that came along. We thought there wasn't a line since we didn't see any runners waiting. Wrong. There were a few little kids standing there instead. Luckily, a guy in the crowd had seen us come over and directed us to a small trailer of VIP-type bathrooms with no line, stairs (ow!), flushing toilets, and even a sink. The extra 50 feet we traveled to get there and back was well worth it.

Not more than five minutes after we were back on course and running once again, a familiar voice called out from behind us. Wendy! Holy shit, were we happy to see her! Turns out Erin had sent her on her way shortly after they crossed the halfway point and she'd been keeping an eye out for us ever since. Score one more for the red skirts! We quickly realized how nice it was to have her back with us because she knew everybody along the route. Okay, not everyone, but she wouldn't get more than 50-100 meters without someone in the crowd shouting out to her, and we were still 10 miles from where she lives.

By now it was close to 1pm and the sun was no longer hiding behind the clouds. I began taking three of the water sachets at each stop, two to drink right away and one to carry with me. I never really felt hot, though. Warm and sweaty and covered in salt, sure, but I never came close to feeling like the heat was oppressive and beating me down. Let's hear it for training in the Doha heat all spring because a lot of the local runners around us were complaining about how hot it was, and it was maybe 80-82.

The route was taking us through lots of neighborhoods, and I kept wondering where the Green Mile was and why we hadn't reached it yet. I had it in my head that it was just around the corner and kept getting disappointed that it wasn't. Finally, we made the turn under the highway at mile 39.5 and there it was. Thousands of cheering spectators all dressed in green. Cheerleaders in bikinis (Holly said no stopping for pictures like we did in Stockholm). Bands playing. Holly pointed out the girls in swings in the trees. Not sure how I forgot about them, but I did.

As the sounds of the Green Mile faded away, we took a left turn onto the highway and began the approach to Field's Hill. This is the one we had driven up the day before and that everyone warned us was the place where many people end up ruining their race by running down too fast. I was so focused on getting prepared for the descent that I didn't even bother to look up and have a view towards Durban, the sea, and the finish line off in the distance. Probably just as well. After running 65 km to this point, it would've been a mental blow to see how far the 25 km left really are. And then we rounded the bend and down we went, Wendy reminding us to go slow and easy.

All I could think on the way down was holy fuck, this is steep. Fuck this is long. Maybe walking will help? Nope, not helping one bit. Ow, my knee! Damn this hurts. Ow, ow, ow! Fuck this hurts. Steep, steep, steep. I remember hearing two guys way back a few hours ago talk about how Field's and Inchanga would be classified as Category 4 hills if one were to use the cycling criteria and rank them. Not sure if that's true or not, but with a 6% average gradient and a length of 1.5 miles, it was brutal. By the time I reached the bottom, the back of my right knee was ON FIRE. Clearly, my ligaments back there did not enjoy having to help absorb the shock of running downhill.

Finally, the monster had been tamed. We turned left and gave our quads a chance to recover while walking up a small overpass. My knee wasn't any happier with walking, in fact probably less so. The road for a bit so up and down we went, walking and running, as more enormous crowds urged us on to Cowie's Hill, the last of the Big Five hills on the route. It's short, only half a mile long, but it climbs over 300 feet. The back of my knee did not enjoy the walk, and my right foot didn't either. I developed a huge blister on the outside of my big toe from altering my gait and stride to compensate for whatever I had done to my knee. To block out the pain, I started doing some more math in my head. Looking at my watch at the top of Cowie's, we had between 10 and 11 miles to go and had been on the road for slightly more than 8.5 hours. To finish in 11:30, I roughly calculated that we could get there with 16-minute miles. Hey, wait a minute, I thought. If we keep ahead of our previously discussed target of 15 min/mile, we could get there in 11:15.

We continued on our way, walking uphill, running downhill, and making good time. The miles were clicking off at a decent clip. 46 - 13:57, 47 - 10:42, 48 - 13:45. I mentioned to Holly that there's a chance we might get in under 11, but she didn't want to hear it. She was going through a tough patch and was worried about even finishing. I reached over, grabbed her hand, gave her a smile, and told her there was no way we weren't going to make it. She had this funny look on her face trying to figure out why I took her hand instead of patting her on the shoulder or back. I told her it was because her hand was probably the least sweaty and sticky body part she had left. Smiles all around.

My smile vanished a little while later when I felt like there was a huge rock rubbing against the back of my heel. I stopped briefly, tried pulling and moving my sock around, and got back up to speed again. Unfortunately, I didn't quite get the sand out and had to stop again. Wendy told me to take my shoe off and clear it up properly. I started to lean against the guardrail when I saw a young woman unfolding a camp chair so she could sit and watch the race. She graciously let me sit my sweaty self down for a minute while I simultaneously took my shoe off while trying not to let my legs stiffen up and cramp. I thanked her profusely and away we went.

This part of the course is a rolling downhill section. There are a few small ups, but for the most part we could run. It's also the part that goes through Westville, Wendy's hometown, and her friends and club supporters were out in full force. Everyone was yelling hello to her and asking about "her group." She had told them she was running Comrades with some friends in order to make sure they finished, and they were excited to see and wave at us too. Really, though, my mind was just focused on continual forward motion. Not Wendy, though. She was chatting with people, running across the road to say hi and take pictures, and even managed to set up lunch with one of her friends for Wednesday. Yes, while the rest of the field was doing all they could to get to the line, she's out there making lunch plans. She's a machine.

Leaving Westville, she told us we had 10 km left to go. Hmmm, my watch says 9:36. We've got 1:24 to run a 10k and finish in under 11 hours. I started upping the pace slightly and told Holly that I would decide at the Tollgate if I wanted to really try for sub-11. We hit the next mile in 11:41. Even with a very steep climb up what's know as 45th Cutting, the one after that was still 11:58. With a sharp left turn and a walk up a very steep ramp, we eased on to the highway for the final pull into Durban. A nice and gentle downhill brought us across the 82.28 km timing mat in 9:52. We had about an hour to run the last 7 kilometers, and that I knew we could do. We walked up the hill to Tollgate and began the last 5 km of the race.

Cresting the hill, I was struck by the huge mass of humanity on the road a few hundred meters in front of us. Holy shit, I exclaimed! It's the 11-hour bus!!! Somehow, our steady progress and mix of strong running with walking when needed had brought us to the back of the bus. Now we had a decision to make, either stick with them or go around them, but really, there wasn't much of a choice. It wouldn't be easy since they were stretched across the shoulder and all but one of the highway's four lanes, but there was no way I was going to sit behind them and finish in the middle of a pack. I charged off around them, pulling Wendy and Holly along with me. I think I got a little carried away because Holly had to slow me down more than a few times and we still ran mile 54 in 10:08.

We ran and walked and ran and walked, getting ever closer to the stadium. There weren't any spectators on the highway, but we did run an overpass beneath which was a really interesting looking outdoor market. Turning left off the highway onto what was the only flat piece of road we'd seen all day, I was doing my best to stay composed. Not an easy thing to do when I'd been training and working for this for so long. Not only was I about to finish, I was about to finish well under 11 hours after giving up all thoughts of doing so five hours earlier. Before I knew it, we had passed the 1 km to go sign and were making the turn into the stadium. We did a little zig-zag through the gate, watched a guy get told to turn his hat around because it wasn't one from the race sponsors (this is why Holly put a Band-aid over the Nike logo on her hat), and entered the tunnel.

Coming out of the tunnel into the stadium, we were hit with a deafening wall of sound. The stands were packed with people screaming and yelling, ringing bells and blowing horns, and willing the runners around the finishing loop to the line. When my feet hit the grass of the pitch, I broke out a huge smile, pumped my fists over and over again, and had my own celebration of conquering one of the hardest and most challenging races in the world. I waved to the crowd, pumped my arms some more, and made the last turn and could finally see the finish line. I threw my arm around Holly, she put hers around Wendy, and we crossed the line together 10 hours, 40 minutes, and 14 seconds after the gun had gone off in Pietermaritzburg. We did it!! Holy fuck we did it!!!! I was ecstatic and never more thrilled and excited to have finished a race.

Then the tears came and I gave Holly a huge hug for being my friend, my running spouse, and crazy enough to do this race with me. The volunteers gave us our medals and patches, I sniffled a few more times, we took a picture, and we shuffled off to keep our legs moving and find the International tent. Comrades provides a huge tent and gathering area where international runners can relax, eat, drink, and meet up with their family and friends after the race. Sadly, by the time we managed to hobble over there, the water was gone and so was literally all but six cans of beer - Castle Light, so no great loss there. We found an empty patch of grass and collapsed onto the ground. All I wanted to do was get my shoes and socks off, a process that took at least five minutes. I untied one lace, started to loosen it, felt my feet and legs cramp up, and stopped to stretch them out. This went on over and over again until my swollen feet were finally free and my toes able to wiggle in the grass.

The scene inside the International area.
The finishing loop is just on the other side of the short metal fences.
The video screen is showing the approach to the stadium, the entrance into the stadium from the tunnel, and the loop all the way around to the finish line

Now we needed our drop bag with our clean and dry clothes. One of the volunteers told us it would be at the general bag tent, which was somewhere on the other side of the pitch. As I limped off to find it, Holly stayed behind with Rupert. I ran into Vanessa at the exit of the International area. We had seen her on our way into the tent, and she was still there waiting for James to show up. He was supposed to finish an hour and a half before us, not a good sign. She did give me some very helpful information, though. She told me our bags were on the far side of the tent and not all the way on the other side of the stadium. That's what I had been led to believe originally, but I was too mentally drained to argue with the volunteer who gave me the erroneous information.

With bag in hand, Holly and I could finally change out of our sweaty tops, put on flip flops, and, most importantly, dig out our phones and start taking pictures and letting the world know we had done it. James had arrived while I was picking up the bag, and his friend Greg took some great shots of us celebrating our accomplishment.

All hail the red sparkle skirts!

Tiny medals, big smiles 

Rupert, James, me, Holly

Rupert rocking his back to back medal

By now, the 11-hour mark had gone by and there was still no sign of Erin. I pulled out my phone to check on her progress, thankful that we'd all signed up to have our splits from the timing mats automatically posted on our Facebook page. I saw she crossed the 82.28 km mat in 11:10 with a projected finish time of 12:06. We all crossed our fingers and hoped she'd find the strength in her legs to cover those last 7 km in 50 minutes.

With each passing minute, the roar of the crowd grew louder and louder and louder. They wanted to see as many people finish the race as possible, and with something like 40% of the finishers crossing the line in the last 30-45 minutes, there was a steady stream of people receiving those cheers. The first of the 12-hours buses, hundreds of runners, passed by the tent at 11:45, and then another equally large one a few minutes later. The crowd was at a full-throated roar at this point, and I was too. I went to stand by the fence to watch for Erin, bang on the metal, and yell as loud as I could for everyone pushing to get across the line before the gun went off. It was quite interesting to see the different kinds of people finishing in the last 10 minutes. Some were members of the Green Number club signifying at least 10 Comrades finishes, and their experience showed. They were generally relaxed, calm, and not stressed over cutting it close. The first-timers, on the other hand, were clearly stressed and then finally relieved to have made it in time.

At 11:57, the video screen showed a runner collapse on the grass as he entered the stadium and two people behind him stopping to help him up and carry him along towards the finish. The crowd exploded in recognition of the potential sacrifice the two men were making in helping the fallen runner. From the point where your feet hit the grass to the finish line is several hundred meters and probably two minutes of running at the end of a 56-mile race when you're carrying another runner. That's the spirit of Comrades, as they say, and thankfully all three of them made it across the line in time.

10! 9! 8!! 7!! 6!!! 5!!! The countdown was ear-splitting as we willed all of the runners in the stadium to make that final left turn and cross the line. As heartwarming as watching those guy carry the injured man across the finish was, the firing of the gun was equally that heartbreaking. The official stood with his back to the line, and when the clock read 12:00:00, he pulled the trigger. The gun fired and the race marshals moved to block the line so no one else could cross. The last finisher was on the ground, having lunged and dived forward to just squeak across. The first non-finisher, who was less than three feet from the line when the gun sounded, was crushed. I felt really bad for the guy, not only because he didn't make it but also because the SABC TV crew was right there to interview him. Watching on the big video screen, he seemed to handle his fate and interview with much more grace than I think I would have.

12:06 came and went and still no sign of Erin. Finally, about 5 minutes later, we spotted a flash of green sparkles on the approach to the stadium. A few minutes passed by, and there she was, still smiling and doing what she set out to do: finish the damn race.

I'll have more pictures coming soon once the official photographer is finished tagging them all, but in the meantime, here's a link to my race video. You can see a great shot of us crossing the line if you choose the "Finish - Total right (until 16:40)" option.

My Comrades Summary post, coming soon, will have all the stats I can think of about my training, my race day plan for fueling and hydration, and whatever else comes to mind. My Garmin profile of the race will be there too, but here it is now for those who have asked for it.

Comrades Marathon, Part 1

Friday

I slept in Friday morning as long as I could before getting up to go for a short run on the Durban Corniche with Holly, Erin, and James. What a strange and pleasant feeling to be running outside in the sunshine at 830 in the morning without melting into a pool of sweat. We did a short out and back to the World Cup stadium (a gorgeous building) and saw lots of other Comrades runners along the way, including the Russian twins who have won the women's race the past 11 years. Long and lean they are not, which just goes to show that you don't need a so-called perfect floating stride to be the best of the best elite runners.

Wendy, Erin, Holly, James, and me
Durban beachfront after breakfast on Friday

After a delicious breakfast on the beachfront at Circus Circus and a quick change of clothes, we were off to the expo to pick up our bibs and do some shopping. I felt I was tempting fate by buying Comrades gear before finishing the race, but I really didn't have much choice. I wasn't coming all the way down to South Africa for a race of this magnitude and going home empty handed. The selection of shirts was pretty good, but there weren't many jackets to choose from. I found an understated grey hooded one, a much nicer option than the satiny-looking one with COMRADES in large block letters across the shoulders that Erin felt would have been more at home on a boxer. Handy tip for anyone planning to enter Comrades in the future: do whatever you can to register as an International runner. The entry fee is higher, but the perks are more than worth it. We had our own registration area with maybe a 10-minute line whereas the South African runners had to wait upwards of two hours in order to pick up their bibs. That's a long time to stand in line two days before an 89 km run.

While at the expo, we met up with some of the other Doha runners including Scott, Keith, and Wendy. We sat down with Wendy for a bit to discuss the game plan for Sunday morning. A veteran of 11 previous Comrades, she graciously offered to forego her own race and run with us to help us with strategy, pacing, course highlights, and whatever else she could do to get us across the finish line. Running a race this far is pretty daunting in the base case. Throw in the extreme hills and the added pressure of the strict 12-hour time limit, and things get downright scary. Knowing we'd have Wendy with us on race day helped keep me calm.

We stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the hotel from the expo to pick up some water and Powerade to get us through until the race. Seeing a liquor store in the same building, Holly and I thought we should grab a bottle of champagne and some beer to stock the fridge and have waiting for us after the race. With the most expensive bottle of bubbly being all of $4 and the best beer Carling Black Label, we hightailed it out of there. Post-race beverages would have to be found elsewhere.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering along the beach to find lunch, watching a kids surfing contest, lounging around the hotel room watching the Giro d'Italia, digging through the goody bags to see if anything worthwhile was in there, and beginning to put our race gear together. Comrades doesn't provide you with an official drop bag, you're free to use pretty much anything you want. We didn't know this until the expo, so I bought a nice Comrades duffel bag to use as a drop bag. Me and thousands of other people, I bet. The bag was plenty big enough for Holly and I to share for our race gear and the clothes and things we'd need Saturday night at the hotel in PMB.

Dinner Friday night was at an Italian restaurant in north Durban near where James' sister-in-law Vanessa, her husband Simon, and their daughters live. We feasted on bruschetta, calamari, prosciutto, and huge plates of fresh pasta with cold beer (me and Erin) and red wine (everyone else) to wash it all down. We talked about the race a lot, of course, but none of us three novices were really that nervous. At this point, our training was done and there was nothing we could do about our fitness, the weather, or anything else related to the race. Rather than stress over every little detail, it seemed a better choice to have a beer, make some new friends, and relax, so I did.

Saturday

I woke up to perhaps my favorite workout that Mary gives me: rest and eat lots of pancakes. That's always a much more enjoyable task than running four hours in the heat and humidity of Doha, so back to Circus Circus we went. Erin arrived first and thankfully found a table because the place was packed with runners loading up just like us. After polishing off colossal stacks of pancakes with extra sides of bacon and sausage, the three of us went back to the hotel to relax, pack, and kill time until James came to pick us up for the drive up to PMB. I started in on my pre-race fueling strategy of alternating bottles of water with a bottle of Powerade and taking a high-test version of Imodium every 6 hours until the start of the race. I wasn't having any GI issues but felt that the pills were worth using in hopes of not having to make any stops during the race. The last thing I wanted to do was slow down Holly, Erin, and Wendy by having to hit the porta-potty multiple times along the way. With only 12 hours to get across the line, every minute and every second are precious.

James and Vanessa stopped by to get us around 315, and after rounding up Erin and Scott at their hotels, we were on our way. As the car pulled onto the highway, James and Scott began giving us a reverse tour of the route, pointing out the toll bridge at 5 km to go, the short & steep ramp to get onto the highway before the bridge, and some of the other key parts of the course close in to Durban. He asked Vanessa to stay on the highway a while longer so we could see what Field's Hill looked like. It's one of the five named hills on the route and it's a doozy, climbing 213 meters in 3 kilometers (roughly 700 feet in 1.8 miles). We'd be running down this, James reminded us, and we needed to make sure we go very slowly and carefully to avoid blowing out our quads for the last 25 km. Cresting the hill, the car got very quiet. Erin, Holly, and I sat in silence trying to comprehend descending that hill 65 km into the race, along with climbing all the ones we could now see stretched out before us towards Pietermaritzburg just to get to that point.

The down run elevation profile

James had mercy on us and decided not to show us any of the other major climbs. Those we'd get to experience for ourselves the next morning. Instead, he drove us down the Green Mile where Nedbank, one of the major Comrades sponsors, sets up a huge spectator and cheering zone for well over a mile of the route. During the race, the Green Mile comes with roughly 26 km left to go and is a kilometer or two before the top of Field's Hill. He told us we'd hear it before we saw it and to be on the lookout for the women in the swings hanging from the trees. I wasn't really paying much attention at this point. I was too shell-shocked by all the ups and downs of the road as we made our way to the hotel. The scenery was truly gorgeous and reminded me a lot of California – green trees, acres of fields of brown and green grass an crops, and hills without end. The longest hill I found to run on in Doha, maybe a few hundred meters long at best, paled in comparison to the ones we now found ourselves driving over. As calm as I had been up to this point, I now had a pit in my stomach and for the first time really wondered what I had gotten myself into.

Checking into the hotel was quite the adventure. Getting our room was easy, but the staff had a very hard time trying to sort out the shuttle to the race in the morning. Holly had already been in contact with a shuttle company, and no one really knew if that was the same company, what time departure was, or how to pay for the trip. We heard everything from a free shuttle leaving at 330am to having to call and reserve a taxi. In the end, we just decided to be in the lobby at 330, assuming that one way or another, the company that Holly made our reservations with would be there.

Once in the room, Holly and I set about organizing things for the race rather than wait until after dinner. Not that I'd be able to sleep much or well, but I wanted to be able to lie down and relax as best I could. The list of stuff I had for the race sounds like a lot, and it was, but I think I made good use of all of it at one point or another: running shoes, socks, compression shorts, shirt, red sparkle skirt, Garmin, hat, sunglasses, Band-aids, Bodyglide, chip, bib, salt tabs, gels/bloks/beans, SPI belt, long-sleeve running top for the first few hours, Qatar Airways PJs to keep warm before the start. My belt strained to hold everything, but I wanted to make sure I had enough on hand to keep up with my fueling plan – one salt tab per hour, one Clif shot or three Clif bloks or one pack of sport beans per hour. Not that I ever could or would eat that much sugar along the way. I planned on switching to salted potatoes once I found them being offered, but it was mentally comforting to know I had the gels if I or anyone else really needed them.

Dinner Saturday night was another super-Imodium and a pretty decent buffet in the hotel's restaurant. I ate as simply as possible – potatoes, pasta with garlic, and a slice of warm bread and butter – and left before I felt full. The last thing I wanted was to wake up Sunday morning feeling heavy from a solid rock of pasta still in my stomach. Back upstairs, I downed a salt tab and was in bed with the lights off by 8pm. That 245am alarm was going to come very early.