Comrades Ultra Marathon, an 89 KM road run on a hilly terrain, between 2 cities in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg and Durban), is the world's oldest and largest Ultra Marathon that attracts around 20,000 runners from across the world. It happened first in 1921. The name Comrades is due to the The League of Comrades of The Great War (First World War). Vic Clapham, a soldier, who campaigned for the League dreamt about an endurance race between his home town Pietermaritzburg and Durban, and realised it 3 years later in 1921.
Several months back, a couple of my friends from Runners For Ever, had been bitten by this Comrades bug and decided to take it on in 2016. Allegedly, one of them has been suffering from the bug-bite for several years. There are a few things that make this run particularly challenging. The first one is, of course, the distance. It's 89 KM, which is a little more than 2 Marathons. It should be covered in 12 hours and there are 5 intermediate cut-offs as well. Then comes the icing on the cake, the terrain. Majority of the course is hilly, with some serious elevation gain/loss. Though I am not good at runs that expect a certain pace, and also not much into Ultra Marathons (distance runs that go beyond 42.195 KM), they somehow convinced me that I too should make an attempt.
Apart from these weekend runs, we added at least one run during weekdays that's 2 hour long. And, of course, strengthening and conditioning through out the week. It's, by no means, a rigorous training. But, a bare minimum one to make a good attempt. We have 3 more weeks to go and we just started tapering down. All of us have 5+ years of running and a lot of Marathons and a few Ultra Marathons to our credit. Hope, all that experience and the bodies that have been used to enduring time & distances would be of help!
6 comments:
Awesome Srinivas! Knowing you a little I'm certain you would have an awesome experience on the race day!!
Thanks Kannan! We were lucky to get in touch with you, who had been there and done that! :-)
Write up is very good sir. I was not aware of this skill of yours.Free flow of thought put in so humbly. All the three are committed and have the endurance. All the best.
Thank You Natraj Sir!
Srini, for a Guy like you who had run all over the world (most part), and marathon a month, that too variety in terms of weather, terrain, Comrades will be a big feather in your medal Kitty!! Good Luck!!
Thanks, KPJ! Looking forward to it. :-)
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