Good article about an interesting ultramarathon. It seems this event captures the spirit of endurance sports. (Cutting the course doesn’t seem to be a real issue here)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2376-2003Jun16.html?referrer=emailarticle
I don’t remember if you have to register to read articles from this site. Let me know if you want to read it but can’t.
That sounds like an awesome race! An unlike desert racing (see http://www.actiontom.com/ ), this is actually do-able for us mere mortals. Sounds like a lot of fun!
I read the following article earlier today, and I think it’s about the same race.
Runner, 73, mugged during race
From correspondents in Durban
June 17, 2003
A 73-year-old Japanese runner taking part in an 89km South African ultramarathon was mugged at the halfway mark today and had his running shoes taken.
Hideo Numasaki, from Tokyo, said he was accosted by two men on the route from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.
“It was quite a lonely spot and these two men came down from the hills,” he told the SAPA news agency.
“They grabbed me, pinned me to the ground and took my brand new running shoes.”
Numasaki shouted for help but by the time a few spectators arrived on the scene, the men had fled.
It goes on to talk about how they’ve had other problems at this race. The complete article is at
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6609900%255E1702,00.html
Hey, fantastic!!
That’s quite disappointing. It just goes to show that the story is all in the source.
Looks like you do need to register to access the story. Can you repost some of it?
Also, a good movie called “The Long Run” (fictional, from maybe 1-2 years ago) about a woman training for and participating in Comrades is worth checking out… gives you only a bit of a taste of what the race is like.
I grew up on the Comrades route with many of my regular runs as a college student being along the course just outside Durban - for those who are not aware of the history it is run in South Africa between Durban and Pietermaritzburg over a distance of approximately 90km (changes each year due to minor route changes) - the start point alternates each year - the Down run (Pmb - DBN) being approximately 10 minutes faster. It is a wonderful race with between 13000 and 15 000 athletes competing - and those who have done both Iron Man and Comrades say Comrades is way tougher on the body - although only a single discipline. The negative press around the “mugging” is sad - South Africa is a beautiful country to visit and this race has an 75 year history with a large number of international athletes. Yes there is crime in South Africa however an isolated incident like this should not stop people doing the race. In my experience it is no worse than any of the major North American cities. Any one looking for further info on the race drop me a line - I am currently resident in Vancouver - a group of us plan on heading down to SA in 2005 to do Comrades.
Here’s the article. From Washingtonpost.com
54 Miles in 12 Hours
By Dina Kraft
DURBAN, South Africa, June 16 – At the end, some of the runners were taken away on stretchers while others skipped, sang and kissed the ground. Some had hobbled or crawled toward the finish line, others leaned on fellow runners for support.
Fat beads of perspiration rolled down the face of Mohamed Vorajee, a 42-year-old mechanic from Ladysmith. His dark green tank top and shorts were soaked. He had finished a few seconds too late to receive a medal, but he could not stop smiling.
“I feel great,” he said. “I’ve never been this far in my life.”
Almost 13,000 competitors wound their way through 54 miles of steep hill country to cross the finish line today in South Africa’s Comrades Marathon, the biggest ultramarathon and one of the most unusual sporting events in the world.
A South African institution, the race is run on alternate years uphill from the lush east coast city of Durban to the British colonial-style town of Pietermaritzburg. This year was a downhill run, beginning before the day’s first light from the brick city hall of Pietermaritzburg. The sounds of “Shosholoza,” a Zulu worker song translated as “Go Forward,” launched the runners on their way.
Thousands thronged the sidewalks and hilltops to cheer the runners on, especially in their final push toward the finish. The grueling race must be completed in 12 hours to get a finisher’s medal – no excuses, no exceptions. Still, many runners return year after year. Those who have run 10 or more are awarded a special green number. For a handful, this year marked their 30th Comrades. One man ran his 42nd.
Thunderous peals of “Go! Go!” ushered the last man – who also was the oldest man competing – across the finish line. Zeb Luhabe, the 76-year-old retired policeman who had taken 10 races to finish before the cut-off, said he was “on top of the world.” Right behind him a 24-year-old collapsed after missing it by one second.
South Africa has become known for “ultra” racing, a term for distances longer than the standard marathon, 26.2 miles. In addition to Comrades, which is in its 78th year, the country is host to the world’s second-largest ultramarathon, a 35-mile run along the shoreline of Cape Town called Two Oceans, and long-distance canoeing, swimming and cycling events.
“The nation is psychologically drawn to extremes,” said Bob Aldridge, editor of Suparunner, one of South Africa’s largest running magazines. “Anything harder and tougher, we like to do. It’s part of still being part of a wild, tough continent.”
The popularity of distance events can also be traced to the 1970s and 1980s, when South Africa, at the height of its political isolation under the apartheid government’s policy of enforced racial separation, looked within for athletic inspiration.
The spirit of camaraderie for which the race was named helps keep people coming back. Everyone has a favorite story: the woman who misses the finish line by a few yards to help an injured friend; the blind runner whose guide drops out but who keeps running with the help of another runner; couples who marry minutes before the starting gun’s blast.
Blanche Moila, one of South Africa’s top long distance runners, says the race typifies ubuntu, the Zulu word for humanity. “You think of the other person’s well-being . . . it’s putting others’ needs before yours.”
Today’s race began at 5:30 a.m., so in some of the early stretches the runners raced by moonlight. A pink sliver of sun eventually rose, exposing ribbons of mist curled into valleys dotted with thatch-roofed farm houses and acacia trees. As they ran, they passed the history of the country, hills soaked in the blood of battles fought alternately between the Zulu, the British and the Dutch settlers known as Boers.
More recently the fighting that took place led to a near civil war. Death squads of the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party backed by the apartheid government attacked their rivals, members of the African National Congress, which is not the ruling party. Counterattacks followed. As the runners made their way through an area called the Land of 1,000 Hills, some remembered that in the early 1990s it was dubbed the Land of 1,000 Kills.
Running in a pair of American flag-patterned shorts was Mark Bloomfield, a 53-year-old business lobbyist from Adams Morgan. International participation in Comrades has grown since South Africa’s first all-races election in 1994. This year’s race had more than 320 runners from abroad, among them several from the Washington area.
“Running is sort of my freedom . . . there are no outside pressures on me,” he said. “My world in Washington is the White House, Congress, journalists and my business sponsors. The running is a balance to that.”
Bloomfield, tired but exhilarated as he crossed the finish line in 11:02:00, said he was buoyed by the crowd and his fellow runners.
Struggling up one of the hills he suddenly felt a hand clasped with his and a push forward. It was the runner next to him.
Running not far from Bloomfield was Paul Newton, 34, of Bethesda. Originally from South Africa, he said Comrades was always a challenge he wanted to meet. He trained through the snowy winter, running routes from Georgetown through Rock Creek Park. His friends were baffled.
“They all think I’m nuts,” Newton said. Crazy or not, his training paid off, and he finished in 10:53:23.
The country’s most celebrated sporting event has a long history.
It began in 1921, the brainchild of World War I veteran Vic Clapham. He had fought with the British in the savannah of East Africa and wanted to find the most fitting way to honor his fallen comrades. He sought an event that would recall not only the intense heat, thirst and physical demands endured in the war’s long treks and fighting, but the friendships and connections forged in battle.
His answer: a very long run.
Clapham was said to have been inspired by tales of a Zulu running between Pietermaritzburg and Durban each week delivering newspapers and mail in the mid-1800s. Word had it the Zulu prided himself on running the hills in 12 hours flat.
The first Comrades was run on dirt roads. Runners had to open and shut farm gates behind them and even cross a stream. There was none of today’s refreshment stands with high energy drinks and peeled bananas. Runners stopped at farmhouses along the way for chunks of bread and jugs of water. A young farmer won with a time of 8:59, the slowest winning time in the competition’s history, but still a respectable result by today’s standards.
Comrades’ popularity soared during the time of political isolation. South Africa’s athletes were banned from international competition and the country needed local sports heroes.
They found a hero in Bruce Fordyce, a handsome archaeology student who won nine consecutive times. In 1981 Fordyce, a mop of blond hair flowing behind him, won his first Comrades. His youth and can-do charisma captured the imagination of a nation, and television – relatively new to South Africa at the time – helped put both him and the race on the map.
Fordyce’s politics also caused a stir. In the 1981 race he wore a black armband to protest the aligning of the race with Republic Day, the 20th anniversary of the apartheid government. Some spectators threw tomatoes, others booed and spat.
“We had unbelievable flak,” he said.
An intelligence officer friend cautioned him to accept drinks along the route only from people he knew, warning of government plans to poison him.
Fordyce said he began running seriously in 1976, the same year of the bloody uprising by black students in the Soweto township, a turning point in the anti-apartheid struggle. He said he was depressed and “looking for something to do.”
At 47, Fordyce says he now runs for the fun of it, even though that means walking some of the last hills on the course.
He also credits the spirit of camaraderie among the runners and the supporters who chant, wave and shout encouragement along the entire route. Farm workers cluster on the edges of sugar cane fields to wave. Children in wheelchairs line up along the roadside to cheer.
“Everybody helps each other,” Fordyce said. “The spectators urge you on. It’s a wonderful vibe.”
To qualify for this race, runners must have completed a race of marathon length or longer in a prescribed time. (For example, you have to run a marathon in less than five hours.) But nothing can prepare a runner for this. As miles are run, but dozens lie ahead, willpower kicks in.
“It’s incredible how the mind takes you through . . . it’s much worse to stop than to carry on,” Fordyce said.
Helen Lucre, who immigrated to South Africa from New Zealand, won the women’s race from 1985 to 1987. She said she did not realize when she began training that the distance run in Comrades was unusual.
“Everybody ran Comrades. You did not know 90 kilometers was not normal. I did not know otherwise,” she said, laughing. “Ignorance is bliss.”
The legacy of Comrades was also a powerful pull.
“It was almost mythical before you run it. would tell you about this race in the hills. There is so much history, so many legends,” she said.
In a 1921 letter to the editor of a Pietermaritzburg newspaper urging people to support the race, founder Clapham noted the race was open to “Europeans of any sex or age” – no blacks, and later women were banned as well. It was not until 1975 that the race opened to all, becoming one of the first multiracial sporting events in South Africa.
Lucre recalled scenes of whites and blacks helping each other across the finish line, collapsing into each other’s arms in exhaustion and exhilaration at a time when the two races rarely interacted.
“Sport has been an incredible bridge to show that regardless of race we could mix,” Lucre said. “Running was one of the few outlets where race did not have to matter.”
The diminutive cross-country runner Moila, 46, ran her third Comrades race. She was the first black woman in South Africa to receive national colors for a sporting event in 1983.
Bringing black women into the fold of running has not been easy here, she said.
" was frowned upon in my community," said Moila, who trains twice a day between shifts as a psychiatric nurse. “Sports was too much of a male thing to do and the main fear was that it would interfere with the reproductive system and you would not be able to have children.”
Black men are now taking a leading role in the race, which was long the domain of white South Africans. Today’s winner was 31-year-old Fusi Nhlapo, recently laid off from his job at an iron and steel company, who finished in 5:28:52.
“If you want something you have to work hard for it,” Nhlapo said. “You must have a dream.”