Thursday 12 June - Sunday 15 June
Thursday we started with the Comrades expo, at the Durban exhibition centre. It started with “Chariots of fire” playing and then the opening of the doors. All I can say is that it was extremely inspiring just standing there listening to the music.
It was UN-BEE-LEAVABLE! Absolutely awesome. There were lots of exhibitors – shoe companies, nutrition, sportswear, general well being, you name it.
Then there was the Comrades shop!!! What a great place filled with clothing and lots of other must have items.
Friday morning I joined the Comrades bus tour for international novice runners. We drove over the route, with a 20 time veteran giving commentary describing the route in detail. It was good to see the hills (the big 5), although as our guide said, it is not the big hills that kill you, it’s all the smaller ones, as when you drive you route you get to see there is very rarely any flat, you are always travelling either up or down. And for the first 50km, predominantly up! We stopped at the wall of honour, and at the Comrades museum in Pietermaritzburg.
Sunday…Comrades day…The Ultimate human race…We woke up around 4am and left at 4.30 to walk to the Comrades start line. There were heaps of people around all ready, many even running and doing warm-ups, crazy people! I guess 89km is just not enough for some people.
A square perimeter some 500m around the start line stopped non-runners from getting too close. At 4.45am the vast majority of runners were already lined up, not much hope of getting a good spot if you came laterWe stood waiting some 20-30 mins just over 500m past the start line. The national anthem of South Africa played some 10 mins before the start, and then with 5 min to go, there was the unmistakable tradition of Chariots of fire. Even though I wasn’t running, it was awe inspiring. Then a minute later the gun went off and over 11500 runners were off, amidst a rapturous applause.I’m not sure if the front runners were sprinting or not, but they were travelling mightily fast. For such a huge number of runners they didn’t take that long to go through, probably between 7-10 minutes. Although the biggest cheers were for the last people, the ones who were behind all the official vehicles that were late and desperately trying to join the official field!
We stopped at Cato ridge, a designated viewing spot. Cato Ridge was some 60km into the race. And we were seeing mostly silver medallist (sub 7.30) hopefuls and Bill Rowan medallists (sub 9.00) running. It was a good experience but lost something by not having someone for us to watch or cheer.We ended in Pietermaritzburg at the finishing arena. We had just missed the first and second woman, but saw number 3 and 4 come in. Leonid Shevtsov, won the mens race in a new course record of 5.24!
I can't wait to get training and be part of this magnificent running event in the down run of Comrades 2009!
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