The training is done and now it is time for what many call “the ultimate test of human endurance”.
Local club Carnival Runners will have 10 athletes taking part in Sunday’s 90km race from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. While some feel they are still gaining experience, others know what the run is all about.
Carnival’s Marsha Davids is the only woman from the club taking part in this year’s up run. This year is her ninth time running the race.
“My experience has taught me to stay focused on the road,” she said.
“I just take it 10km at a time until I get to the end.”
With this year’s race being an uphill run Davids is feeling confident.
“It’s my up run,” she told the Brakpan Herald.
“For me going up feels more downhill than up. It’s just psychological for me.”
She is looking forward to finishing the race this year and in 2020 so that she gets her green number for completing 10 Comrades races.
Read: Comrades around the corner
She had advice for this year’s novice runners.
“Don’t go too fast. Just go slow and then gradually increase your pace,” she said.
Carnival’s top runner Petros Mbokazi will be running the annual race for the 15th time.
“The experience helps with my training,” he said.
“I know what I’m going to face.”
He is aiming to come home with a silver medal (for finishing the race in less than seven hours and 30 minutes). This is a feat he has achieved five times before.
He says that his goal to one day reach his double green number (20 Comrades Marathons) keeps him motivated.
“After 20 I’ll decide if I still want to go on or if I’ve had enough,” Mbokazi said.
Unlike Davids, Mbokazi prefers the downhill run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban instead of the other way round like Sunday’s event.
Read: Locals conquer Comrades
“In the down run it gets easier in the last 20km because it becomes flat while the up run you get to the Polly Shorts at that stage,” he said.
The oldest runner from Carnival is 62-year-old teacher Sandile Makeleni. The veteran of 12 Comrades Marathons has always been passionate about sports.
He is a former national champion karateka and has coached cricket and squash in the past.
Makeleni had words of advice to the youth.
“The youngsters must remember that in life they must put their duties ahead of their pleasures,” he says.
“Often when I’m having a run in the morning I see young people doing wrong things in their cars and doing drugs. They must not concentrate on the wrong things but they should rather work hard.”
Follow us:
For more #hyperlocal news at your fingertips, visit Springs Advertiser, Boksburg Advertiser, Benoni City Times, African Reporter
