Local Comrades a Winner
After the disappointing news of the Comrades being cancelled, these six gentlemen came up with the idea of attempting a local 90km marathon around the East Rand.
After the disappointing news of the Comrades Marathon being cancelled, six gentlemen came up with the idea of attempting a local 90km marathon around the East Rand.
They started in Benoni, heading out through Boksburg, Bedfordview, Bonaero Park, and back around Benoni to finish at the Benoni Northerns Sports Grounds, calling it the Benoni Comrades.
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“We started the run on the freezing cold morning of June 14. Throughout the run we had incredible support in the form of fellow runners, friends, family, spectators, cyclists, support vehicles and Benoni Northerns Athletics Club (BNAC) members, motivating us along the route.
All six of us finished the 90km,” explained Mark Dingle.
“We, as well as more than 200 BNAC members, were entered to run the Comrades Marathon from Pietermaritzburg to Durban on June 14, however, this was cancelled, along with most other sporting events due to Covid-19, but we weren’t having that,” explained Mark Dingle.
The six of them began to plan their run and wanted to incorporate a fund-raiser as well for their club. “BNAC has an incredible development squad of runners, which the club assists with funding for races, kit, and we wanted to assist with this,” explained Dingle.
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Running the Comrades with BNAC
They then put together the fund-raiser in the form of pledges, so anyone could pledge a Rand value per kilometer run, per runner.
“This definitely gave us the additional motivation to finish the 90km,” said Dingle.
These athletes and BNAC have received an overwhelming amount of donations, exceeding R60 000 and surpassing their expectations.
“We are so thrilled to have achieved so much doing this for our club. We are still accepting donations and hope to reach R80 000 for the BNAC Development Squad,” said Dingle.
Times from the day:
• Mark Dingle – 8:41
• Perry Todd – 9:21
• Matthew Willis – 9:26
• Will Heystek – 9:39
• Marc Daniel – 10:06
• Ross McMurdo – 10:06
“It was an absolutely incredible day with overwhelming support, not only for us as runners, but more importantly for the fund-raiser and Benoni Northerns Athletics Club,” concluded Dingle.
