Race Report, Comrades novice no more by Bronwyn Kloppers

When asked to write a race report, I thought “oh my word, how on earth will I manage… ” cause to be quite honest Comrades feels like a bit of a blur. A blur with snippets of pure magic.

I never had any real inclination of EVER doing Comrades but one morning somewhere in November whilst sitting at my desk, I saw that the entries were open and before I knew it spontaneously clicked on the enter button and  thought to myself… what have you done!!!!  To make myself feel better I convinced Rohuan to do the same.

The months leading up to Comrades were a bit of a roller coaster -Obviously… I had no clue what I was doing. For the first time ever I decided that I was going to be more structured with my training and actually try and follow a bit of a program. So I went onto my Garmin, and selected Garmin Coach, starting with a program for Two Oceans. Within seconds I had a program, based on my own stats. I was ready.…… not!!!! It turns out that if you don’t sleep enough your “coach” keeps giving you rest days so eventually I  had to come to the realization that all these rest days were not going to work. Back to the drawing board it was.

Eventually I decided that being structured just wasn’t for me and went back to my original, not having a plan, plan …I definitely did get a few eye rolls when I said that I’m not following a training program. What made things worse was that so many people kept saying things like; “You must have a race plan”, “You must have a pacing strategy”, “Respect the Distance”, “Know your why”and so on.  I was terrified!!!!!

Somewhere along the journey I read an article that if you run 800km from January to race day it was too little and over 1200km was too much, so I kind of used that as my guideline.

Before I knew it, months had passed and Race day had finally arrived. The day before race day I was looking at my, very organized friends race profile chart and kind of tried to pretend like I knew what was going on. We were all chatting and I realized I still don’t know my why but here I was and there was no turning back.

Race day- 2am wake up so I could feel ready for a race I had no idea how I was going to complete but for some reason I just felt incredibly calm.

Lining up in my pen at the start, looking a little bit like robocop with all my Perpeteum containers in my running belt, I just tried to take in as much as possible. So many people had told me not to forget to take it all in. The energy was electric. A moment etched in my memory forever. South African National Anthem, Shosholoza, Chariots of Fire, Cockerel crow and off we go.

The start was very slow, and I remembered the advice given about not feeling panicked and just using the time to breath and find a rhythm. My aim was to listen to my body and just find a comfortable pace to settle into whilst keeping an eye on my heart rate to make sure I kept it relatively low. For the first few kilometers I really struggled to find a comfortable pace and my heart rate kept spiking so eventually I decided to stop looking at my watch and just trust the process.

Thanks to my training runs with Andrew and Brendan, I started walking at the first incline that probably wasn’t even an incline and started counting, 25 steps- walk, 50 steps – run , and so I kept doing this without fail at every single hill. Some hills were so little that I had to ask fellow runners… “is this a hill?” but just kept going.  I settled into a super comfortable pace and suddenly felt in control of my race.

The week before the race I listened to Webinar (one of the only two I ever listened to) and realized that they won’t have a facility available to refill soft flasks or hydration packs. I had a bit of a panick until Moira told me to just breathe and that it will all be fine and guess what it was.

As my Perpeteum bottle reached the empty mark, I grabbed three water sachets. This was going to be test. I placed two and a half sachets into my soft flask and the other half I drank for hydration. It was perfect. It worked like a charm and I could do all of this while continuing to run. So I kept doing this hour after hour.

At some point I caught up with Brendan and remember asking him if we’ve passed the point where it’s supposed to be very cold (again knowledge gained from my 2 Webinars) and he told me that we passed that ages ago, so I had a little giggle and finally could take off my warm top. I ran with my warm top and kiddie gloves in my hand for a bit and eventually could give it to this really tiny little girl and her brother alongside the road.  It was special to me. I Loved that.

Myself and Brendan ran together for a bit. Looking at his pacing bands he said that we were ahead and that if we kept this pace we could even possibly do closer to a 9hr30. I felt surprised as I didn’t really have a time in mind, but definitely felt a bit more motivated after hearing that.

After this I caught up with Steve and had a little chat and off I went settling yet again into a comfortable pace.

Somewhere on the route I finally reached Inchanga where the Ethembeni School for Handicapped Children is located. Again one of those moments I will NEVER forget. I stopped and high fived just about every single one of those children. They loved being out there and I just felt on such a high but yet so humbled.

As I mentioned, I didn’t know the route beforehand, (so I hope I got this right) but somewhere close to Drummond I was running alongside a guy who hadn’t run Comrades for quite a few years and was back. He said it felt like it was his first, I told him that it was my first one too. And for for the first time I thought….hang on this is my first and I’m actually still feeling great. I almost tripped over a cats eye and felt relieved that I didn’t fall. Sadly my newly made friend did fall but got up just as fast and kept going in true Comrades spirit.  I somehow also in all my chatting completely missed Arthurs seat… Jaaaiiiks.

Running down fields hill I started chatting to another guy. And he told me to read what was written on the back of his race number. It said “smile if you love God”. He told me that his little girl had written that on his race number and when he saw it, he knew he had done something right. All these special moments  just added to the magic of Comrades. I could just go on and on and on.

Going down Fields hill, I remembered Coach Parry words , don’t go too fast down fields , don’t burn your legs as you will regret it later, so I tried keeping a steady but comfortable pace.

When I reached the 70km mark I thought, YAY…. this is the furthest I’ve EVER run and felt super chuffed. I also remembered someone saying that the race only starts at 70km’s. So was ready for the “wall” that I expected would be coming my way fairly soon. Before I knew it, we had reached Pinetown and up Cowies hill. It was time for my soft flask refill and I realized I had somehow lost a perpeteum bottle along the way so opted for 32gi endure instead. I stopped to ask some spectators to help me and boy were they amazing. I felt like I was in a formula one race and seconds later was back on route.

At this point my legs were feeling a bit sore but the wall never came and all I could think of was my Teamies at FHAC, sitting at the club cheering us on. There was no stopping me now.

The End felt like it took forever to arrive, my Garmin kept adding on the extra km’s but as I reached the  final stretch and heard Catherine and Guy I just had the biggest smile, A few steps further I  got to see my person, Faansie and my heart just wanted to explode. I knew I had done it. I was just completely blown away by all the people in my corner and It was just the best feeling in the world. I ran the Ultimate Human Race. I ran it with no race plan, no pacing strategy and no official training program. If I can do it so can you!!!!!!

The support on route was just phenomenal. Fanie and Kristin seeing me early in the race, Daryl on route, Luzaan (with her black and yellow flags) , the group of supporters dressed like bees and so so many others. I was grateful for Pauline with the Wimpy sign. Almost felt like I knew her. Thank you so so much to every single one.

Thank you for the messages of encouragement before the race, Thank you for FHAC Teamies for supporting us before, during and after the race. Thank you for all the messages after. I truly am blessed. I could never ever have done this without all of you. Biggest shout out to all the family members (including my person) that had to patiently wait for the training runs to be done.

It was about all the snippets of advice that finally came together. It was about Di, Marcy and Patrick calming me down in the club parking area when I thought I was pretty much doomed, It was about Andrew that kept telling me to slow down. It was about Jake, telling me to respect the distance-but not too much, it was bout Moira telling me to breathe, it was about Russel during a training run telling me to hold back and not push too soon, it was about Brendan (& Grant) giving me a step by step guide on nutrition and introducing me to Perpeteum. It was about Bron introducing me to Rehydrate, it was about Lambert telling me to just run my own race and not worry and Glen telling me that getting in under 10hours was possible, it was about each and every person telling me that I’ll be fine and believing in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. What an incredible blessing!!!!

Messages came through that meant so much but one message in particular just changed something for me. It was a message from a runner in the club, telling me how much I inspired her and I just knew I had finally found my why. My heart is full.