(And what | learned from it.)

URBAN-PIETERMARITZBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, June 15, 2008—Where [ start telling this story? If this were a movie, we would start at the revelation scene, where the hero finally gets the pivotal news, good or bad. Try to visualize it in widescreen, framed by the tawny brush of the hills of KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa. A runner is walking a kilometer or so to the Umlaas Road aid station sometime in the midafternoon about 69 kilometers into the 2008 Comrades Marathon on his way to Pietermaritzburg (or “PMB” to those of us who have visited it) from Durban. He has looked at his cutoff chart and suddenly realized that he has timed out. He shakes his head in disbelief. How did that happen? Wasn’t I making good progress on the first four of the “big five” hills of the course? Skunked again, he sighs. Skunked, skunked, skunked—his words echo as he goes into a flashback.

Blur the focus for the flashback scene. We see the same runner on another midafternoon of a difficult race a few years before. He is going for another finish of a local 50-mile ultra, commemorating a famous Civil War battle. The course, soaking up rain for the better part of a week, is a quagmire. Our runner is smeared with mud. As a BOPer (back-of-the-packer), he has been sloshing and sliding his way through the slop left by most of the other runners. He is not a good mudder and behind his pace. Thank goodness, he is coming to the next-to-last aid station before the finish. As he enters, he is informed by the aid station director: You’ ve timed out. Probably by a matter of minutes, but how could he have known? He didn’t bother to prepare a cutoff chart to take with him on the run. And now he has paid the price. You’ve timed out, out, out echoes through his head as the flashback ends.

Back to the revelation scene, you ask? Not by a long shot. We flash forward to 2007 and the previous year’s running of the Comrades—this year going from

Pietermaritzburg to Durban. Roll the exposition. You see, the Comrades Marathon (actually an ultramarathon) is a point-to-point course that reverses direction every year. And while we’re at it, I should add that the Comrades Marathon is an approximately 90-kilometer road race (89 kilometers in the downhill year; 87 in the uphill) first held in 1921 to commemorate the fallen of World War I. It is South Africa’s Boston Marathon, a must-do race for runners that attracts tailgaters along its route and viewers on television, broadcast live on one national station throughout its 12 hours.

I’ll be back!

Back to our story in progress. Our runner in 2007 is completing his first Comrades, trotting happily through the streets of Durban on his way to the Kingsmead Cricket Ground in the dusk. He enters the stadium for his victory lap, blinded by the lights and deafened by the rumble of people stomping the bleachers in the last 30 minutes of the race. After a grand day out, rambling over the “big five” hills (named after the “five must-see” animals to see in the South African game parks), he has glided in for a smooth landing in the flats of Durban from the hills behind the city. He has never before experienced such electricity from the people still cheering on the BOPers after spending hours in the stands. Crossing the finish line, he spies a smallish table staffed by a race official, seemingly an afterthought in the carefully plotted out finish area. It is the place where runners who completed the Comrades for the first time in the previous year claim an additional medal for two consecutive finishes, having done both the up and down courses. Caught up in a transport of adrenaline and joy, our runner catches the attention of the race official at the table and promises /’// be seeing you next year.

Cut to spooling a montage of what our runner is doing in the coming months. Realizing that he will need a bigger margin of safety for the 12-hour cutoff on the uphill course, he begins to lay out and train for a simple strategy: run-walk the uphills (alternating running and walking with a scale that could slide toward more walking as the day goes on) and hammer the downs and flats. In addition, he will make sure that he has his hydration/nutrition program firmly planted into his brainstem (so he will not let up on his water and gels as he begins to gorp out a bit on that warm afternoon). Most important, he will keep an eye on the cutoffs (carrying a waterproof cheat sheet in a gel pocket), making sure that he can adjust his plan if necessary.

Cue flying music as a South African Airways plane touches down in Durban in 2008. Cut to the runner going to the international booth at the expo, picking up his packet, and asking the International Runner Liaison whether he could volunteer to distribute packets on the day before the race. Dissolve to the next scene of the runner busying himself in the booth and speaking to various entrants in his

fractured command of their own languages—French, Portuguese, Sesotho. This is the director’s alternative to the usual scene showing the runner mope about the city counting the hours before the start and having a crisis of confidence. To his words to an entrant to have a great day out there, we fade out and fade in—to race day.

Zoom in on the runner in a corral near the back of the pack in a sea of humanity in a dark, predawn Durban. The various South African time-honored traditions spool on, including the singing of “Shosholoza,” the Ndebele/Zulu song originally sung by workers from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) traveling to the mines of South Africa by steam train. Also sung by President Nelson Mandela when he worked as a prisoner in the quarries of Robben Island, it has since become an unofficial anthem in South Africa, often sung at sporting events. It imitates the “sho-sho” of the steam engine, urging the train forward through the mountains—running on, running on. Following the requisite playing of the theme “Chariots of Fire (Race to the End),” the runners finally hear the cock-a-doodle-do once crowed by an enthusiastic runner (and now recorded for successive races), and the race is on—at least, once the runners of the back-of-the-pack corral shuffle across the starting line several minutes after the starting gun, giving the runner a deficit to overcome right from the start. At Comrades, 12 hours is 12 hours—gun to gun.

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Climbing out of the city on Berea Road, after the author passes the 12-hour bus and builds up a bit of steam for Cowies. (The bus will pass him just before the halfway point.)

Meeting the first of five famed hills

So the runner shifts and downshifts between a trot in third gear and a walk in second, wending his way uphill on Berea Road, past Tollgate, and through the 45th Cutting (named for a part of the road built by the 45th Regiment of Foot in the mid-19th century). Well beyond the 10-kilometer mark, he grinds on to Cowies Hill (the first of the big five), a 1.5-kilometer ascent of 137 meters tacked on the end of the climb out of Durban. While this stretch was a romp on the downhill race the previous year, it is not so bad this uphill year. Perhaps the training will pay off. Already the runner has passed the 12-hour “bus” (pace group) and surprised a few international runners who didn’t expect to be racing with the fellow who gave them their packet.

Enjoying the downhill after Cowies and a flat stretch as he reaches the 20K mark, the runner comes to Fields Hill (the second of the big five, named for a local pioneer), a fairly serious three-kilometer stretch rising 213 meters. Then it’s on to Bothas Hill (the third of the big five, named for Cornelius Botha, whose halfway house once welcomed weary wagon drivers headed from the interior to Durban), a 2.4-kilometer climb of 150 meters, seemingly easier this year than when he had surmounted it in the downhill year. Same as the previous year, however, is the rousing reception given by the students of Kearsney College. Heading down the steep descent (which was such a challenge the previous year), he passes the Wall of Honour (commemorating famous Comrades runners) and Arthur’s Seat (a benchlike space carved from the cut on the side of the road), where Arthur Newton—a five-time winner from the 1920s—would take a break before tackling the second half for the course.

Just beyond the halfway point at Drummond, the runner takes on Inchanga (fourth of the big five, named for a neighboring village), a bit of a bear (to cite a beast of a different continent), given its 2.5-kilometer distance and climb of 150 meters. Everything is pretty much holding up, thanks to the runner’s blind adherence to his aid-station routine of fluids, electrolytes, and snacks. In fact, he has even conquered the biggest challenge of his first running of Comrades, getting fluid down his gullet from those awful plastic sachets (which in year one mostly dribbled down his front). Nonetheless, there are disquieting signs. Things are warming up quite a bit under that African sun. More troubling, the 12-hour bus has actually passed him. He makes his way through the ups and downs of Cato Ridge and Campertown, where people are enjoying perfect braai (barbecue) weather—hardly perfect for the runners with over 20 kilometers to go. Yet the students at Ethembeni School for handicapped children cheer him on and inspire him with their indomitable spirit.

Still that nagging doubt about being passed by the 12-hour bus. Not to panic, he thinks. The bus always allows for taking rest stops along the way and slowing

Just past an aid station one or two hills into the course, the author thanks his lucky stars that he still has water in his canteen and does not yet have to gnaw his way into one of those *&%/#! sachets (those detonated blue bombs beneath his feet).

down in the final kilometers of the race. Didn’t I pass them in Durban just before the finish last year? He checks his progress with the cutoff times and—Godfrey Daniel !—tealizes that he has passed the cutoff time for the next aid station. He shakes his head in disbelief. How did that happen? Wasn’t I making good progress on the first four of the big five hills of the course? Skunked again, he sighs. Skunked, skunked, skunked— his words echo, as he is about to go into a flashback.

That fateful aid station

Whoops, we’re back where we started. No need to go through all of those flashbacks again. Moving right along (so to speak), he drops his pace to a racewalk, accepting the inevitable and covering the final kilometer or so in dejection. Cue up the violins.

But lo and behold! As he enters the aid station, he sees several runners preparing to move on. He even sees the 12-hour bus depart for the finish line. You mean we haven’t reached the cutoff time here? Cue the theme music up. Game on! The runner is still in the fray with 19 kilometers to go and the clock ticking. The high point (literally) of the race at Umlaas Road may well be the high point of our story.

But now the runner has to do the math (and do it more accurately than he did calculating those darn cutoff times!). OK, Buster, here’s what you’ve got to do: First, get through the next 10K of ups and downs under the afternoon sun. Second, get up Little Polly and the infamous Polly Shortts’ posthaste. Third, zip down to PMB and the finish ASAP. Get it done.

The runner brings to bear all of his experience and endurance, honed over a decade of distance racing. As he trots along toward the Pollies, he sees the wheels

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coming off for dozens of runners who were not hydrating and keeping up their electrolytes. As if going to a disaster scene, the runner sees more and more people in increasing distress: some runners sitting on the side of the road with heads down and others dry-heaving; minivans scurrying back and forth transporting people to aid stations. The runner sees that the fallen runners are managing as they wait for another sag wagon and moves on.

He reaches Little Polly, an uphill stretch often confused for hill number five by weary and gorped-out runners. Without any ado (or walking), he scampers to the top of the 1.5K rise. Then looms Polly Shortts, the mother of the all the big five hills. Here even accomplished runners often peter out into a racewalk. Not this runner. To beat the clock—cue in a ticktock theme on the soundtrack—he must take his training one step (actually several steps) beyond and run this sucker. He powers up the 1.8 kilometers and 100 meters of elevation and makes it to the top. Cue the triumphal music.

But it’s not over yet. He has some five kilometers to go and is running perilously close to timing out, as the race has entered its final hour. Time to kick into this stretch of downhill into PMB and the finish. The first few kilometers go quickly. This is going to be doable, he thinks, before reaching the outskirts of town and—cue up the discordant brass—an uphill! This uphill wasn’t in the downhill year. What gives? Then he realizes that he is not running down to the 2007 start at City Hall but uphill to the City Oval in Alexander Park. Cue in the tragic theme—No, let’s get this done regardless. As we get to the five-minute mark, he grinds out block after block in the city. A spectator hopefully yells out, “You can still make it!” As the daylight fades quickly in the African sky, he sees the lights of the oval ahead.

Determination (and embarrassment for slipping up on the math of the last cutoff) on his face, the author scuds on in the afternoon heat to the Pollies, the final hills on the course.

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Really down to the wire

Cut to the international tent at the finish. The International Runner Liaison and US Comrades Ambassador look nervously at the television, trying to pick out the runner at the finish line. The International Runner Liaison speculates, “He checked out of the Polly Shortts aid station quite some time ago. He ought to be showing up any minute.” The US ambassador says nothing, peering intently at the screen and trying not to think about the worst-case scenario.

“The last minute of the 2008 Comrades Marathon,” the announcer declares. Ten seconds spool away on the television with no sign of the runner. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds. Then, just past 30 seconds into the final minute, a grainy image of the runner comes into view on the screen. Cue in the “Chariots of Fire” theme: ta-dadada dah-dah (thunka-thunka), ta-dadada dah-dah (thunka-thunka). Cut to a close-up of him, vaulting over the finish line in slo-mo. Cut to the liaison and ambassador hugging each other.

Hold on. Let’s see the payoff scene in the director’s cut, following the runner right to the finish. We left him seeing the lights of the oval dead ahead. As he leaves the road rounding the turn into the oval, we hear from the loudspeakers: “The last minute of the 2008 Comrades Marathon.” Darned if I’m going to be caught like a fly slamming against the screen door, the runner thinks as he shuffles ahead. As he enters the oval, he realizes that he still has a victory lap around the stadium and then a dash down the runway to the finish line in the center of the oval. We won’t repeat his thoughts at the time but indicate only that he kicks up the pace, having no idea how far into the last minute he is (since his eyes are bleary from the lights). As he finally turns the corner into the runway, he prepares to go airborne just before the finish. In that way, he can make his next landfall inside the finish line if the gun goes off. To the din of cheering, he springs and hurls himself over the finish line with 25 seconds to spare, even landing on his feet. Done.

He claims his finisher’s medal as well as the coveted two-consecutive finisher’s medal, but he has other things on his mind. He limps his way with his best John Wayne swagger to the entrance of the international tent, aglow in the bright light of the oval. The International Runner Liaison sees him and runs (in slo-mo) to give him a hug. Tears fall from both as the camera circles them, the US ambassador patting him on the back. Cue the soft music. Too schmaltzy? Well, it was a pretty schmaltzy time that night.

So how to finish this story? Walking back to the Durban bus with the US Comrades Ambassador, fading out 4 la Casablanca and celebrating, like Bogart and Rains, “a beautiful friendship”? Raising a “proudly South African” glass of white wine with a friend over a plate of prawns, as Bill Powell and Myrna Loy would do with their martinis when they crack the case at the end of a Thin Man mystery? Looking down from the plane at Durban and realizing (like Jimmy

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Son of a gun, the author made it—with 25 seconds to spare! Now where’s that lady with the two-year medal (and where can he find a plate of prawns and a beer)?

Stewart looking down from that bell tower in Vertigo) that he never again would be haunted by timing out? Maybe there is no finish to this story, since the runner continues to do distance races to this day.

What I can tell you (if I were to have a voice-over in the final seconds of the picture) is that all of those endings help tie up the story. In the 2008 Comrades Marathon, my most unforgettable ultra, I learned several valuable lessons: connecting with people in the day or so before the event to stave off prerace jitters, solving the mystery that will bridge the gap between the challenges of a course and your weaknesses, and outrunning your past mistakes and fears.

Finally, I came to learn—as you have seen in the above—that you are not only the hero in, but also the director of, your own sports film. All things being equal, you have it in you to decide if the movie is to be a tragedy or triumph. Do you overcome the odds to come out ahead—perhaps in the final moments? Or do you trip up at a critical moment and lose it all? As distance runners, we have more of

an opportunity to go from tragedy to triumph over the course of a daylong race. All we need to do is cue the music and show a game face to the camera.

And what | learned from it

Use your head to outwit the course when you make and train for your race plan. Examine the course carefully to figure out where you can capitalize on your strengths and where you will need to address (or compensate for) your disadvantages. I was ready not only to hammer the downhill stretches, but also to grind up the hills at Comrades, using a sliding formula for walking and running. My hill work at home prepared me for carrying out my plan.

Have your hydration/electrolyte/medication/nutrition plan worked out to the last kilometer (or mile) and commit it to your brain stem—or have it written down on a waterproof card for reference. Well into the day of a distance race, we lose both our appetite and our mental acuity, wreaking havoc on your performance if you neglect to ingest what you need to go the distance. Make sure that it’s a no-brainer to keep up with your desired intake of fluids, snacks, and pills.

Consider volunteering for the race packet distribution if you can work it into your schedule. It is a great way of getting to know people better (often runners who sacrifice their running day in favor of yours), and it just might keep you from moping around and worrying about some imagined twinge of pain before the start of a race.

If you need to keep track of cut-off times as a BOPer, make sure that you have a foolproof system that will take into account your declining mental state during the race. A mathematical error on my cheat sheet almost knocked me out of contention and certainly took the wind out of my sails for a kilometer or two.

Never, ever count yourself out of a race. Leave that to a race official. Besides, you’ll never know when you’ve miscalculated or cut-off times have been liberalized because of extraneous circumstances. Go into the next aid station or toward the finish with the spirit of a contender and see what happens. You’ll either move on or go out with head held high.

Dictate the storyline of your race so that it comes out as you want it to end—despite the inevitable setbacks. Be ready to overcome those setbacks and sweat it out to a triumphal finish.

Endnote

So as not to interrupt our story, here is one account of the origins of Polly Shortts. “Polly” (actually Portland Bentinck) Shortts was the son of a Scots doctor who had gone to South Africa en route to treating Napoleon Bonaparte in Saint Helena. To make a long story short (or Shortt?), we flash forward to Polly establishing a farm, Shortts’ Retreat, just outside PMB and a short jaunt to the Star and Garter, a pub similarly just outside the PMB city limits and therefore a popular watering hole after hours (and beyond the law) for the town. Polly was a regular at the pub, where he downed his whiskeys and expressed his opinions with equal and considerable zeal. He was said not to be averse to letting people have it, whether with his sharp tongue at the pub or with his shotgun from the threshold of his home. Rumor has it that the source of those piercing aches and pains experienced by Comrades runners as they begin their first or last hill (depending on the year) is the ghost of Polly getting off a

good volley at the cheeky intruders. my