Comrades

Today we watched the Comrades on TV - safely in Pretoria so watching on TV was quite acceptable! Jen castigated herself for watching from home when she could have been at the finish - this year, having a snooze in the afternoon was no shame!

Comrades Marathon has been part of my family mythology as long as I can remember. My Dad ran Comrades - I actually only remember one race, but we heard all about the others. The first ones he ran after a serious abdominal op when he was told he would never walk upright again and was determined to show the doctors they were wrong. The race when his two brothers-in-law, Graeme and James, seconded him - by waiting every 10 miles along the road - no refreshment tables in those days! The time he popped into a pub at 45th cutting and joined in a soccer game at the finish on the high caused by a double brandy on an empty tummy. The shoes - tennis shoes with the toes cut out. The time Wally Hayward finished and then came back and ran in with the back markers.

I remember the last time he ran - I was in Grade 8 and we weren't allowed out of Boarding School, but caught a glimpse of the last runners (Dad probably amongst them) as we went to Nagle Dam for a picnic.

Dad passed the baton - and his number - 49 - on to his brother -in-law, Graeme, and seconded him a couple of times - using reverse psychology to get him to carry on, by saying - your friends are just behind you - let them pass you! I remember going to watch Uncle Graeme run - we parked halfway up Pollyshorts, and clapped and cheered the 500 runners home. From Uncle Graeme came other stories - of the blind runner, Ian Jardine, who would run with his friends, holding on to a hanky held by the guide for that race - sometimes Uncle Graeme. And then, once women were allowed to run, Aunty Hazel started running and did a whole bunch of Comrades herself - slow but steady.

When we first moved back to Maritzburg in 1981, I remember standing on the corner of Maud Ave and Jesmond Road watching Bruce Fordyce win his first Comrades. He wore a black armband to protest the Apartheid regime, and Pete's Dad turned his back and refused to applaud.

In the late 80s, Pete ran 3 times. I remeber the first race - the training, the pressure before the race, the way we were all scared to breathe in case we gave him germs, the weekend in Cape Town at his friend Charles' wedding, and the drive home the night before the race, the long wait to see him come in at 10hrs 40, the way he lay in the bath that night and said, "Never again!" Then the next year when he cut more than an hour off his time.

I remember waiting in Durban the year the first black runner won the race, and seeing the helicopter hovering over Frith van der Merwe, with her amazing race.

Moving to Jesmond Road gave us another link with the race - the first year when the race went past our house - what excitement. The race changed route for a while, and we felt sad and cheated, but it eventually came back home! Sarah had a link with the race for a while through a boyfriend, Brad Glasspoole, and Pete got involved again, as a "worker," most recently as the driver of the car at the back of the race with his good friend, Arnie.

Today was different - Pete was able to watch it on TV, I wasn't home to cheer the runners past home, the St Nics Steel Drum band played at the Nedbank Mile at Camperdown and we watched with Kev.

But one thing stayed the same - I will never play an active part in the Comrades Mythology. No matter how fit and thin I get, I have no intention of ever doing anything so crazy as running from Durban to Maritzburg or Maritzburg to Durban. Comrades runners are mad in the head!