LOCAL runner, Gerald Pavel, will be a pacer for the Comrades Marathon for the first time on Sunday.
Gerald, an experienced ultra distance runner, started to pace at local KZN races six months ago to qualify for the Comrades. He has completed five Comrades Marathons in previous years and has two 100 milers under his belt.
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Gerald is the only official pacer in KZN and said there are 18 pacers for this year’s Comrades Marathon from all over South Africa. This year there are two women pacers for the first time.
“I like to help people, and as a ‘bus driver’, as a pacer is called, we help pace runners from the start to the end of their run, to help them achieve their goals,” he said.
Gerald said a lot of runners start off the Comrades too fast, and he manages the time, by breaking the race down in chunks, and he runs with them to tell them where they need to be during the race to complete it within the 12 hours.
“I carry a flag with my name and sub time so people can identify me on the road among the crowd.
We start at the back, and it takes around eight to 10 minutes to get across the start line, and from there I know where the runners should be at the certain times of the day. If people run with me, they know they will finish.
After the 60km mark, they wonder what the heck they are doing, and it is my job to motivate them and put a smile on their faces to keep them going. It is hard, people really feel the pain, and I need to make sure they eat and drink and try help by telling them what they should and shouldn’t be doing,” he said.
Gerald puts in a lot of training and has recently put in up to 170km of running a week. He said he put in 60km on a Thursday recently, running from Hillcrest to Polly Shorts, which he then paced the next day.
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He then did a 5km park run on the Saturday and on the Sunday he paced the JG Zuma Marathon, one of the last qualifiers for the Comrades. On Monday, 1 May he paced the Hibiscus Marathon, a 50km race.
“I could definitely run the Comrades faster, but it’s not about that, it’s about helping people and putting back into running. I need to keep the people all together. We’re all the same on the road, we feel the same pain, no matter what race or gender we are, we are all runners,” he said.
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