Comrades EXPO – The Marathon

COMRADES ISN’T HARD :

Posted on March 3, 2018February 19, 2022 by DAVE JACK

We’re into March and most Comrades runners should by now be well into their Comrades training and I’ve just read Bruce Fordyce’s latest blog in which he says it’s now time to start training hard for Comrades and I totally agree with him. March used to be when I started the serious stuff in my running days but it’s not the physical training I want to talk about.

I have often been asked by “ordinary runners” – as opposed to the elite or even those running for silver medals – if Comrades is hard and my answer has always been the same. Comrades isn’t hard.

By implication, that would mean that Comrades must be easy and I can immediately hear runners and “would be” Comrades runners saying that I must be completely round the bend. If Comrades wasn’t hard, then everybody would be doing it.

When you consider that in the 92 years we have had Comrades, we have had something like 120,000 different people who have run Comrades (that is something of a guess) and that is only a very small percentage of the total population of the country who could qualify to take part that, so if it is “easy”, why then do so few people actually take part and why have so few people taken part since the race started in 1921?

The answer, I believe, is fairly simple. Getting to the start line of Comrades is hard but Comrades itself, if you’ve prepared properly both physically and mentally, is not hard.

I started off by excluding the elite or professional runners and those running for silver medals etc. because I know nothing about how they feel on Comrades day. I have never been there so I can’t comment on what it feels like to run Comrades at 5 minutes a km or faster but I can comment on what it feels like when you are running a Bill Rowan or slower because I have run in both those categories and its those runners I’m wanting to “talk” to in this blog.

The first big challenge is to commit to running Comrades, often from having done little or nothing at all in the way of exercise previously in many cases. I know one person who promised himself for 20 years that he would run before he eventually did!

That’s quite a long time to make up your mind!

The problem after you’ve made up your mind to run is that you are still a long way from the Comrades start line and almost immediately second thoughts and doubts start to creep in, and often it’s only the fact that you can’t keep your mouth shut and you’ve told people that you are going to run Comrades that keeps you going. In many cases you elect to shift the goalposts a little from this year to next year’s Comrades in order to give yourself more time.

The trouble with that is the shift in the goalposts often comes with an easing up on the training and in most cases stopping completely “because my knees are taking too much strain”. Old rugby injuries you understand!

Where the runner doesn’t move goalposts and the training and racing distances get longer and longer there are other problems that come along. Pains in places you didn’t know pains could be. Trips to physios and doctors and it’s only the end of March… but we carry on.

We feel better. We have qualified. We’re sometimes even running better times but it’s getting harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning because it’s getting darker and colder. Some of our training partners have fallen by the wayside. Old rugby injuries you understand!

We start hearing horror stories about things called Inchanga, Botha’s Hill and Cowies Hill and there’s talk about cut off times and being pulled off the road if we don’t reach certain places by certain times. Our mind starts to do cartwheels.

We go out and buy ourselves a very expensive watch that works out our speed per kilometre, which by the time we get to the 65km mark on race day is going to drive us completely insane as we work out that we’re running at 3 mins 15 per km! No! That can’t be right!

The marker boards count down in Comrades but nobody told us that. Now we’re trying to calculate our times with that fancy watch and marker boards that count down and so we try again.

Ah! That’s better! We’re doing 25mins per km. No! Hang on! Now we’re in very serious trouble.

Bottom line – save yourself the money. You don’t need the fancy watch. Use an ordinary wristwatch. You start at 5:30 in the morning and you need to be at the finish before 5:30 in the evening and at certain cut off points by certain times of the day and the organisers tell you what time of day those are. Keep things as simple as possible!

So where is this all leading me?

You may not have noticed but I haven’t said a thing about how you should prepare physically for Comrades. There are plenty of people around who can do that for you. Some of them will confuse the hell out of you but I leave you to work out which training schedule works best for you – just don’t jump from one to the other.

Everything I’ve said has to do with that part of you from the neck up!

That crucial 90% of Comrades from the neck up that needs to be very well prepared to get you through from Pietermaritzburg to Moses Mabida Stadium on the 10^th of June. The legs and the physical training only account for 10% on Comrades day. We’ve been saying that for more years than I can remember.

I remember being told as a very young Comrades runner 50 years ago that if my legs could get me through 60km, they could get me through 90km. The other 30km is up to your head but if that hasn’t been prepared properly you are in for a rough day. We’ve always said the Down Run actually starts as you get into Pinetown!

I’m certainly not by any stretch of the imagination a hero of any sort when it comes to running Comrades but I started 14 of them and I finished all 14 inside the time limit which in those days was 11 hours and not once did it even enter my mind during the worst of my runs to stop and get into a car.

In the 1971 Down Run I started with what we later found out was ITB but at the time we had no idea what the pain at the side of the knee was so I ran. Or at least I tried to run but by the time I got to Pinetown I wasn’t able to run so I had only one thing I could do and getting into a car wasn’t the one thing. Walking to the finish was the only option I had, so I did that and I got home in a touch under 10 hours and I put that down to the fact that I was strong mentally and I always worked on that preparation in all my Comrades.

That day in 1971 if I hadn’t prepared mentally there is simply no way I would have finished and it was only that mental strength, that got me through in what I regard as a fairly respectable time in what I have very recently learnt is regarded as the longest ever Comrades distance-wise.

The longest ever Comrades and I walked from Pinetown, effectively with a leg that wasn’t working but my head was!

If you have put in the distance in your legs and you have done at least one but preferably two or three runs of 60km or maybe a bit more, your legs will see you through on “the day”.

So how do you prepare mentally for Comrades? There are just a couple of things to do before race day. Those 60km runs in your legs go into your mental “bank account” and count big time on Comrades day when you remember that at the end of those training runs you felt “pretty OK” to face further distance so now your physical is taken care of and you can focus on the mental preparation that literally hundreds of Comrades runners ignore at their peril.

So what do you do to train mentally?

The major thing is to get to know the Comrades route. This is easy if you live in KZN and get to run on it regularly and things like Inchanga, Botha’s Hill and Cowies Hill become regular parts of your training runs.

Not so easy if you live far away and the first time you see the route is on race day or the day before.

I have done a detailed description of the route and it’s available on another chapter of this blog. Study it and get to know it. Not just a passing glance. Read it several times so that when you get to know the various places where you are.

Then the crucial thing you must do is break up your Comrades into small pieces. There are usually seven time based cut off points (including the finish) and the longest is usually no more than about 19km or so. Whatever you do, don’t stand at the start thinking you have to run 90km to Moses Mabida Stadium in Durban. That will just blow your mind.

Stand at the start and think that all you are going to do is your 19km run (or whatever the distance is to the first cut-off) and that’s all.

You have all run 19km and much more in training so that’s not an issue at all so your longest run on Comrades day is 19km or so. The next cut off is about 11km further so that’s your next run.

So that means that your first run on Comrades day is about 19km. Your next run is about 11km and so you go for the rest of the day. Don’t worry about anything other than the run you’re busy with. No point in stressing about Inchanga when you’re in Camperdown! Concentrate on Camperdown when you’re in Camperdown!

So on Comrades day you will end up doing seven little runs. That’s all it is. Seven little runs! That’s not too much to ask of anyone.

One long run of 90km is a huge job – but seven little runs. That’s no big deal!

The great thing about these cut off points is that Comrades tells you where they are and then they put up huge big boards about 1km from the cut-off point to let you know it’s up ahead.

So all you have to do is to learn to identify the landmarks of the cut-off points and then tie them back to the route description I have given you. Six of them on the route!

This is getting easier and easier all the time! That’s why I say Comrades isn’t hard.

Do the hard work before the 10^th of June and enjoy Comrades day. That’s what it’s there for.

MARCH 2018

2018 MY VERY SPECIAL COMRADES

Posted on February 12, 2018October 3, 2022 by DAVE JACK

I have written about the fact that I’ll be attending my 60^th Comrades in 2018 and I have spoken about it and I have also written and spoken about the fact that it’s the 50^th anniversary of my first running of Comrades in 1968.

I have often told the story of how as a 9 year old boy I stood at the side of the road in Pinetown and watched the Comrades Marathon for the first time and was immediately captivated by it and I turned to my father who had taken me to watch the race and said to him “when I’m big I’m going to run this” and I have said over and over that I don’t know why I said this to him or what prompted me to say this. Whatever it was it proved to be something that was to define the path of my life in so many ways over the years since then, both in business and personally.

In 2017 I met one of our top women runners, Ann Ashworth, and I discovered that she has almost the exact same story as mine. Her father took her to watch the race when she was very young, younger than I had been when I saw my first Comrades and obviously many years after my experience, and she stood at the side of the road and as the runners came past she turned to her Dad and said “when I’m big I’m going to run this”. Comrades has had also had huge impact on her life.

I don’t know how many people have a similar story to the two of us but I certainly know many people who have thrown themselves into this race and given so much to it. People who have their Comrades numbers as their car registration numbers or part of their email addresses for example as I have. Just a small example but that sort of thing but at the risk of boring you to tears please allow me to tell you my story again.

After having not missed being at a Comrades since watching that race which Gerald Walsh won in 1956, on the 31^st of May 1968 as a 21 year old young man I lined up at the start of the Comrades Marathon in Durban as a first time runner and 10 hours and 25 minutes later I crossed the finish line in Pietermaritzburg to earn the first of my 14 Comrades medals.

The strange thing is whilst I’ll be celebrating the 50^th anniversary of my first Comrades, I don’t remember much about that day. I only remember about half a dozen or so bits of what happened during the day. I remember a few things that happened before I trotted down into Drummond and looked at my watch (an ordinary wristwatch) and it was 8 minutes past 11 and thinking that was OK and that if I could repeat that for the second half to Pietermaritzburg I’d be fine in terms of the 11 hours we had in those days.

I remember stopping about 200 metres before I got to Enthembeni School to listen to the radio – no TV sets back then – that a spectator had as Jackie Mekler – in my opinion one of the greatest Comrades runners – came in to the finish for his 5th win, a touch after 12 noon and thinking that I could only hurt for another 5 hours because then it would be 5pm and I would either be at the finish or I would have to stop because I would have run out of time and I had done 6 hours already so I and the pain were over half way.

Then I remember very little more until I reached Polly’s. Going up Polly’s that first Comrades of mine is crystal clear to this day. I knew how I was going to do that. I had planned that over and over before race day. 200 paces run. 100 paces walk. 200 paces run. 100 paces walk. 200 paces run. 100 paces walk and so on whether I was tired or not that’s what I was going to do and that’s what I did and soon the top was there.

The result was that Polly’s, and in fact no hill on Comrades or any other race, was ever a problem because that’s the way I handled them all and I’ve often spoken about controlled walking many times over the years. It’s as simple as that.

Does it hurt? Of course it hurts but it helps to get the pain over much quicker! Remember the old adage? If it didn’t hurt everyone would do it!

Back to that first Comrades and I remember nothing more until I came into the grounds of Collegians Club where we finished in those days. I don’t remember hearing any announcer and I don’t remember if there was one. Then suddenly it was all over and the watches had stopped at 10:25.

4:25pm on the 31^st of May 1968 and I had finished Comrades!

I was alone on the track. No other runners. Just me. We weren’t given our medals on the day as happens now. We had to attend a “Medal Parade” a few weeks later where they were presented to us or they were posted if runners couldn’t get to the Medal Parade. The medals were engraved with our name and time.

I did 5 hours and 8 minutes for the first half and 5 hours 17 minutes for the second half. Still very proud of that split although I still have no idea what the distance of each half was. I didn’t care and I still don’t!

I had trained for four and a half months from absolute scratch to get there but I was very strong mentally because I had given lots of attention to that side of things as well as the physical side and the way I went up Polly’s was proof of that.

So the 10^th of June 2018 I’ll be 71 and I’ll be attending my 60^th Comrades and at the same time celebrating the 50^th anniversary of that first run in 1968. I find it hard to believe that its 50 years ago but it is and so much water has flowed under that bridge since then but there are two things that have stayed in the same place.

Durban and Pietermaritzburg!

The start and finish may have been moved around a bit but Durban and Pietermaritzburg are still where they’ve always been! The distance may have changed a bit over different years but the race is always between those two cities and they’re where they’ve always been!

I have often been asked what distances I ran in my various Comrades. I have no idea how far any of them were. The distance made not one scrap of difference to me nor should it to anyone running Comrades. I’ve asked a couple of winners if they knew what distance they ran and those I asked also didn’t know. I was told to get to the start before 6am and run to the finish before 5pm as it was in those days – so I did!

I’ve missed only three races since 1956 and those were deliberate misses which I did after being at 50 races in succession and I did so because I thought that I had probably got Comrades out of my system by then. Those three were 2006, 2007 and 2008 and by the time the 2008 race came round I was going crazy because I wasn’t there and I even took myself overseas so that I didn’t feel it but it didn’t help. I sat in front of a computer all day in the UK and watched as much of the race as I could that was streamed live via the internet so whilst I regard myself as not having been there, I certainly watched as much of it as I could from 10,000kms away!

I didn’t plan that the two anniversaries (attending my 60^th and the 50^th anniversary of my first run) would both fall in 2018 and it was only a few years ago that I realised that they do.

Anyway I hadn’t got it out of my system after the 50 years and 2009 I was back at Comrades and have been every year since and as long as I am able to do so will continue attending. My next target is the 2021 Comrades. 100 years since the first Comrades when Bill Rowan trotted into Durban to win in 8 hours 59 minutes. That’s only 3 years away so all being well I should make that!

My next target after that is 2025. The 100^th race. I was privileged to have run the 50^th one and to have notched up my personal best time so to be at the 100^th whilst only as a spectator is an important goal.

I have been involved in many facets of Comrades. I started as a spectator and then a second in the days before refreshment stations when runners had their own personal seconds. I’ve also served on the Comrades organising committee in what was one of the most rewarding of experiences.

I spent 18 years on the road reporting on the race “live” into news and sports bulletins for 702 Talk Radio and for many of those same years on arrival at the finish juggled my phone and a microphone as I also handled the stadium announcing as part of that team. It was also during that time that I was asked to handle the prizegiving one year and had the honour of meeting Madiba. Something I will never forget.

I brought many great runners home from that announcers’ tower at the finish and if you were to ask me to single out one or two special moments I would have to say the day in 1989 when Frith van der Merwe ran 5:54 to finish 15^th overall and set a woman’s time that I think is going to take a huge effort to beat and Bruce Fordyce’s 9^th win in 1990.

I doubt that we’ll ever see 9 wins from a runner again, certainly not in what’s left of my lifetime. I’m not certain that people fully understand what a feat it is to win Comrades once let alone 9 of them. Ask all those great runners who have failed to win whilst trying to do so and there is a long list I could rattle off of really top class distance runners who tried to win but couldn’t.

I’ve often been asked what the attraction of Comrades is that has drawn me back over and over for 60 years and I really don’t know what it is. I can easily explain the years when I ran. I can also easily explain the years when I was working as a journalist or stadium announcer but there are many who would say that the remaining years defy logic and I would be hard pressed to argue that. In fact I would have a bit of a problem arguing why I travel to Durban year after year to attend Comrades as a spectator.

Why I sit at the side of the road on race day cheering on a bunch of runners, most of whom I don’t know and those I do know are so busy fighting their enemy “time” that they don’t want to stop and talk anyway.

I don’t know why I go year after year to Expo to look at the same exhibitors offering almost the same things and why I shake my head along with some of the other “old timers” when we see obvious novices desperate to make sure they finish, prepared to try any product on offer that they think will get them to the finish on race day when all they really need to do is to get out there and run to the finish.

I can’t answer any of those questions and I wouldn’t even attempt to do so. It is one of those mysterious things that one is simply not able to answer. One of those things that one can try to arrive at some sort of logical answer and still not find one, so long ago I realised that there is no point in trying and that I should simply accept that when I stood at the side of the road as a 9 year old boy in 1956 and watched Comrades for the first time that something magical happened.

There’s no debate that over those 60 years I have met some of the most amazing people, some of whom have become lifelong friends but there’s more to it than just that. There was something so much more that did so much to shape my destiny and the direction of my life in so many wonderful ways.

That being the case, why try to find an explanation?

February 2018

COMRADES – MICK WINN HALL OF HONOUR

Posted on August 2, 2017February 19, 2022 by DAVE JACK

The Comrades Marathon Association honoured its Founding Chairperson by naming the hall at Comrades Marathon House in Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg after him. The Mick Winn Hall of Honour was officially opened by CMA Chairperson, Sifiso Nzuza on Wednesday, 2 August 2017.

87 year old Thomas Michael Winn, a retired pharmacist has been associated with the Comrades Marathon for well over 50 years. He completed 12 Comrades Marathons between 1964 & 1975 with a best time of 6:34 and a worst time of 10:52. He is a life member of Collegians Harriers and was the founding Chairperson of the Comrades Marathon Association in 1981.

Winn served on the CMA organizing /executive committee for 15 years commencing in 1971 and for 12 years as Chairperson from 1974 – 1986, during which time the race grew from just under 1000 to just over 10,000 participants.

Under his leadership, Comrades became the first major sporting event in South Africa open to men and women of all races. He was associated with and/or personally responsible for many of the innovations which characterize the race as we know it today – including the abolition of personal seconding and introduction of refreshment stations, the theme song – Chariots of Fire, commercial sponsorship, live television coverage, the introduction of the Expo concept, and the decision to purchase Comrades Marathon House and initiate the Comrades Marathon Museum – both ideas he brought back after a trip to the New York Marathon.

After retiring as CMA Executive Chairperson in 1986, he continued his association with the event by serving on the CMA Board of Trustees consecutively for the next 20 years, during which time his chief area of responsibility was for the CMA charity portfolio from 1995 – 2006, initially associated with Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund 1995 – 1997, before introducing the concept of Amabeadibeadi, which became universally recognized as CMA’s own official multi-charity initiative.

Winn has long been regarded as an “elder statesman” at Comrades, and has on many an occasion been called upon to impart his leadership, wisdom and vision, particularly with regard to disputes and/or issues relating to transformation. In 2014 he was elected as chairperson of the newly formed CMA Elders committee, a fellowship and advisory body comprising past leaders of CMA which was formulated to preserve and retain access to the collective wisdom and institutional knowledge relating to the history, traditions and ethics of CMA.

Apart from his involvement with Comrades, Winn also contributed decades of his life to athletics administration at club, provincial and national level in South Africa. He served for 12 years as Chairperson of the South African Road Running Association, during which time road running as a sport grew and prospered and South African road running athletes achieved world class competition and performances despite international isolation. In fact, the sport of road running and its athletes developed and flourished during this period as never before or since.

Under the period of his leadership the infrastructure of the sport was developed extensively. Winn personally waged epic battles against the old SAAAU for the rights and recognition of road runners, including the awarding of national colours, previously reserved exclusively for track athletes.

He was one of the main initiators and played an instrumental role in the transformation process in athletics, having joined other major sporting administrators in travelling to Harare, during the apartheid years, to engage in breakthrough unity talks with alternative sporting structures from within South Africa.

In his professional life, Winn was in business in Pietermaritzburg for 45 years and is a Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of SA. He was also active in his community and service organisations, served on the Chamber of Commerce Executive for several years and as a member of various service organizations. He was awarded Civic Honours by the City of Pietermaritzburg in 1988. He has a wife, 1 daughter, 3 sons, 2 step-sons and 14 grandchildren, 1 great grandson and another one soon to arrive, as well as an aged Rottweiler, a fat cat and another very pampered cat.

CMA Chairperson, Sifiso Nzuza said, “We are deeply honoured to officially open the Mick Winn Hall of Honour at Comrades House today. Mr Winn has contributed immensely to the Comrades Marathon Association and it is in this vein that we thank him for his input with this meaningful acknowledgement.”

CMA Heritage & Traditions Chairperson, Jeff Minnaar said, “I am honoured to be part of this meaningful exercise for someone who has been a mentor to me for nearly half a century. His knowledge and experience of the sport of road-running and the Comrades Marathon in general is phenomenal.”

2 August 2017