I R not an ultrarunner, but my buddy double-dog dared me, so what could I do?
What an amazing alternative universe we entered. 
You get a special blue-colored race number if you’re international:
It has your name on it front and back so the other 13,000 entrants and 500,000 spectators lining the route call out your name all day long, saying, “GO CHRIS!!! WELCOME TO SOUTH AFRICA!!!”
The expo had a Boston vibe to it. We were as full of piss and vinegar as you can be before running 56 miles over hill and dale.
It was freakin’ amazing out on the road. Tens of thousands of kids holding their hands out to get a low 5. Dancing girls. Credence Clearwater and other American oldies at mega volume. Zulu battle songs. People with boxes of biscuits, chocolate, potatoes, fruit offering whatever they could do to rescue you from The Mother of All Marathons. Live TV coverage for 12 hours with 4 million viewers.
Here’s what it looked like at mile 42 when we came into Durban:
If you look closer, there’s a story behind the numbers:
Two of these 8-hourish guys have green numbers, which means they’ve completed 10 or more of these bad boys and their numbers will never be raced in by any other person. Not only is your name prominent on your number, but the number of finishes too. In my age group I saw guys with 25, 27 and 34 finishes on their numbers.
Runner’s World claimed you take a recent marathon time and multiply by 2.42 to get your Comrades time. WHAT?!! Do they know how tortuously hilly this thing is? My buddy Scott has several 100s and many 50s under his belt and went 3:30 at Boston. So his number was 8:30. Right? No way. This is what he looked like at mile 42 doing a 10-hour pace:
He’s covered in salt and I know that look of desperation. Fortunately for him, he thinks this is fun. 
He doesn’t think triathlons deliver enough pain for your recreation dollar.
Here’s one of South Africa’s national heroes flashing by without lower legs. He represents them in cricket and swimming in the paraolympics. He went 9:44. 
They had rub-down and tape-up stations all along the course that were packed with wincing athletes. I couldn’t believe how many warriors had their legs all taped up.
Me? I don’t share Scott’s philosophy of “if you don’t come close to death you missed the point of it all,” so I was still aware of my surroundings at mile 42:
Look at the pain on the faces of the other runners. I have never seen so much suffering in a race as this one.
I was an hour behind Scott but the spectators kept cheering anyway (it put me exactly in the middle of all finishers). Here are the 4 spectators Scott and I imported to South Africa:
We owe them a lot, although they got a Safari and Victoria Falls out of the deal.
You finish in a great stadium. The guy on my left was a pro soccer player in SA for 6 years until he broke his back and had two disks fused. Docs said he may never walk again. This was his 8th Comrades. He was nice enough to escort me the last 6K.
I couldn’t believe the carnage – so much more than in an Ironman. Everyone was limping from soreness no matter their finishing time, walking backwards down stairs, hanging onto bannisters, etc. Tragically, two guys collapsed and died on the finish line. Scott said he felt worse after this than after his 100s, maybe because of so much running on asphalt and the brutal downhills.
But somehow we loved it anyway:
In a half ironman I can go 5:15-5:30ish and the leaders go 4:00. Even in a marathon the spread isn’t that much. But here? Oh my gosh. The leaders arrive in 5:30. The top guys in my age group go 6:30. Major respect. 
Maybe even reverence.
This was the experience of a lifetime.
