Comrades

Sometimes, you know you have to do a thing, even if you can’t say why. But sitting in the taxi on the way to LAX, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I’d made a huge, horrible mistake. It was June 2006 and I was on my way to catch a multi-legged flight to Durban, South Africa, a trip that would take me 48 hours. I was going there to run the Comrades Marathon, a 54.3-mile race and the oldest ultra-marathon in the world.

Let me be clear: I never have considered myself an athlete. At the time, I suppose you could say I felt stuck. So far, I’d figured out what hadn’t worked—my marriage and my associate job at a big law firm. Running had always kept me in shape and helped me figure things out. Right after college years ago, I’d gotten into marathons because I was curious about just how far I could run and didn’t want to spring for a gym membership in order to exercise. After 2002, when I left the practice and started working for the federal court several months after my divorce was final, I started running more than I ever had before. It was as if the tangible distance I covered with my feet would help me get past what had happened in those prior years. It was also as though the physical pain my legs bore from all the miles helped to offset my unrelenting emotional pain.

A few years later, mere marathons didn’t seem like enough, and I ran my first ultra marathon, a 50k, in 2005. I remembered being nervous and feeling out of my depth before my first marathon in Los Angeles 16 years ago. Running over double that distance on the other side of the world and in the opposite hemisphere was unlike anything I’d ever attempted. My voice cracked and my eyes flooded as I said goodbye to family and friends on my cellphone.

“If you check out the video coverage of the race streaming on the internet, look for an orange baseball cap,” I told them.

Comrades was started in 1920 by Vic Clapham as a tribute for his fallen comrades in WWI. His first attempt to obtain a permit was denied because officials thought that the run was too arduous. But his second request was granted when he maintained that, if untrained, unfit South African men could go off to march hundreds of miles for months and years with heavy rifles, a fit, trained South African could run this race. People now come from all over the world to run it, making it a great meeting of different cultures from different lands. Following years of this country’s struggle, the race is open to women and all races. It is a testament of the ability of people with different beliefs, even those with a history of bloody violence, to meet upon a common ground and help each other move forward together towards the same goal. It is a living monument of sisterhood, brotherhood, and peace. How could I not want the chance to be a part of that? Going to the opposite end of the earth for this race appealed to me as having an aspect of a pilgrimage, like a knight going on a crusade hoping to be made holy by his journey. But it was more than that. Although I couldn’t put it into words at the time, I felt that if I could participate in that moving monument myself, I might somehow find my own personal peace. I was at odds with my past self whose marriage and first career path career hadn’t worked out, and I was uncertain who I wanted my future self to be. I wanted to find a way to build a bridge between the two.

To enter the race, runners have to qualify by completing a sanctioned event within certain times. The course must be completed in 12 hours or less, and they mean it. 12 hours after the starting canon fires, a man stands with his back to the finish line and fires a gun into the air, signaling dozens of volunteers form a human chain blocking anyone else from crossing the finish line. There are time checks along the course, and runners failing to meet the cut-off times are pulled from the course and bused to the finish line. When my application was accepted, I connected with a small group of Americans who were going to the same race, many of whom were members of the Buffalo Chips Running Club in Sacramento, California. Before this race, I only had run two ultra-marathons, with my longest being 37.5 miles—still almost 20 miles short of the distance I would be running. I’d had a difficult time fitting in the training over the past year; peak mileage weeks of 65 to 70 miles required over 15 hours of running. With a full-time job as a government staff attorney, I was struggling to get it all done. To stave off burnout, I decided to pick the race I most wanted to run and, of all the ultra-marathons in all the world, this was it. Nevertheless, I felt as though I could never be prepared for this race and was woefully undertrained.

After having waited in seemingly endless lines, I found my group of runners at the gate for the first leg of the trip from LAX to Heathrow. It was a small group of about 12 other people, and nine of us were running the race. Suddenly, I felt much more at ease. They were experienced runners, and all had previously run 50-mile races. In fact, most had even run 100-mile races. And aside from being accomplished runners, the group was an interesting, bright bunch (a physician, two professors, four tech/engineers, two chemists, and a judge). I was the youngest and most novice distance runner among them.

We arrived on Wednesday afternoon before the race on Friday morning at 5:30 a.m. Our luggage, however, did not arrive with us, and my shoes were the only running gear I had. The airlines promised, though, that we would have our luggage by Thursday evening.

After catching up on sleep, we took a tour of the race course the next day. The first thing we were told by Brian—a man from Petermaritzburg officiating our course tour who had completed 18 Comrades himself—was, “In Comrades, you’re always going up or down; but hardly ever staying flat.” That was not what I’d anticipated. Although George, the Buffalo Chips group organizer had told me that the total elevation gain was 2300 feet, there evidently was a miscommunication. We seemed to be constantly climbing up and down that same 2300 feet, over and over again. The course reminded me of the Big Sur marathon, with its dramatic vistas of lush emerald valleys and bright green carpeted mountains under crystal blue skies. Lovely, but by no means “flat.” I cringed as I thought back to my beach training runs and my paltry ten-ish mile hill runs in Beverly Hills. On top of that, it is significant to note that the course alternates year to year in direction between Durban and Petermaritzburg, with runners running down from the mountains in Petermartizburg to the coast to Durban one year, then running up from the coast in Durban into the mountains to Petermaritzburg the next year. I was running in an “up” year.

After the course tour, I concluded that I had a 20 percent chance (on the outside) of completing the race. I felt a surge of queasiness as I thought about the people I’d told about the race, the time I’d taken off work, the time I’d spent training, and the money I’d spent. I promised myself that I’d give my best effort and at least try to make it to the halfway point so I didn’t completely embarrass myself.

That evening, we took a walk along the shore of the Indian Ocean and then had our Last Supper of pasta and vegetables before the race the next morning. We retired to our rooms, and I talked to my roommate, Linda, who wasn’t running because she planned to climb Mount Kilimanjaro with some of the group afterwards. But she’d run all but several kilometers of the race several years before. Linda was a retired I.T. supervisor with the State several decades older than me, and one of those Yoda-like people who exude a deep knowing of universal wisdom.

“You can do this, if you want. Your ability to complete it will come down to the power of your mind, not your hill training,” she said.

I couldn’t believe in myself, but I could believe in her.

Then, she gave me her boiled-down counsel, “Keep moving forward; do not stop. Do your best. Remember where you are—you’re in Africa. And have fun.”

Right after she finished her pep-talk, our luggage arrived. I unpacked and laid out my clothes for the following morning.

The race started at 5:30 a.m. Linda got up with me at precisely 3:23 a.m. I dressed and gave her a bag of warm clothes to bring me at the international tent in Petermaritzburg to put on afterwards. She was unflinchingly calm.

“See you at the finish line,” she said, and that was that.

We walked to the starting line in front of City Hall. Amby Burfoot, “Runner’s World” editor and former Boston Marathon winner who was also running Comrades that year, joined us along the way. It was surreal, like the distance runners’ equivalent of walking in from the parking lot at Coachella with Bruce Springstein. South Africans had white numbers; international runners (like me) had blue numbers; runners who had completed at least ten Comrades had green numbers (egads); and runners who had completed at least twenty had yellow numbers (inexplicable).

I started with Lillian, a judge, and Abe, a retired aircraft engineer. Both were cancer survivors. We took a minute of silence to express our gratitude to the Universe before the race began and calm our nerves. A high school choir sang Zulu songs, the theme to “Chariots of Fire” played, a cannon fired, and a rooster crowed. The race began. Even though it was pitch black, hundreds of people cheered and lined the streets, yelling “Run chaps, run!” “Go lady, looking good!” Despite the hour, I liked running in the dark; I couldn’t see the hills.

Abe, a strong runner who had run numerous sub-3:00 hours marathons and 100-mile races, helped me get a rhythm with the hills. When the hills were too steep, we power-walked them. It was inefficient to do otherwise; you’d burn up your energy. We made up a mantra to chant to ourselves: faith, hope, persistence, patience, and conservation. Numerous volunteers at frequent aid stations handed out “sachets” (plastic tubes) of water and Energade and glasses of Coca Cola. About an hour and a half into the race, I started taking salt/electrolyte pills and Motrin every hour or so.

Before we knew it, we were going through our first cut-off and up the first major hill, Cowies Hill. It was serendipitous that I had forgotten to pack my watch. I probably would have spent the race obsessively looking at it. I was still with Abe, although we had lost Lillian and passed another pair from our group. Abe had a watch and knew where we needed to be.

As we ran, we were surrounded by lots of friendly runners. One local runner wearing a green number said she began running some dozen years ago when her husband unexpectedly died of a stroke. I asked her for any advice, and she said, “Just keep running like you’re running.” For many miles, I ran next to a man in his tribal caftan, with his face painted and wearing Nike sneakers. Meanwhile, people on the sidelines were having a grand party, drinking and barbequing. They cheered us on as if we were Olympic athletes.

We passed “Arthur’s Seat,” and both Abe and I placed flowers we’d picked along the road there, a Comrades tradition. Arthur Newton won the Comrades for five years in a row in the 1930s and is honored by placing a flower in his “seat” where his spirit comes to watch the race every year. Legend has it that those runners who do not place flowers on Arthur’s seat will have a bad second half of the race. Right after that, we approached the halfway point. At five hours and 40 minutes, we made it with 20 minutes to spare. We ran under a halo of balloons with cheering crowds all around. We had passed three hills of Africa’s other “Big Five” (Cowies, Fields, Bothas, Inchanga, and Polly Shortts). I was heartened that I’d reached my lesser, modest goal of making it halfway but didn’t want to think about having to run the other half.

However, after the halfway point, the race became noticeably tougher. My legs were wasted and my stride had shortened considerably, but the end—some 45 kilometers away—was nowhere in sight. The sun beat down, and there were few people watching or cheering. We seemed to be running through sugar cane fields. I was still with Abe, though. We’d been running for many miles within eyeshot of Dave, a San Franciscan chemist who had run some 160 ultra-marathons, including numerous 100-milers. But we passed him sitting on the ground with a leg cramp. As there was nothing we could do to help, we kept on running. Not long after that, we came upon Dennis, another man with our group and veteran ultra-marathoner who’d even run several Comrades in years past in less than 11 hours. This year, though, he was walking and told us to go on; he wasn’t going to finish. “Just not my year,” he said. Of our group, there now were only two people ahead of us.

With 35 kilometers to go, Abe peeled off to use the restroom. Although he usually caught up with me on the downhill, he never came back. I couldn’t seem to get a rhythm to stay with anyone around me. I felt nauseous and didn’t want to drink any Energade or Coca Cola, much less eat anything—not even the squares of Cadbury chocolate the volunteers were offering sounded good to me. When a runner near me walked off the course to get on a bus taking runners to the finish line, other runners on the course jeered. I shivered and looked in the other direction.

Stuck with only the voices in my head to listen to, I decided to use my anger to drive me forward. I thought about the things I most resented and tried to use them to overpower the pain and discomfort. I thought about what Linda had told me, “don’t stop,” and resolved to keep moving. I focused on making it to the next kilometer marking. After running for what seemed an eternity, I saw it. I had traveled one kilometer. It was demoralizing, but I kept on.

I went back to my resentments, thinking about all the rotten things my ex-husband had said and done for four or five kilometers. I remembered a time when his mother had come to visit a year into our marriage. My ex-husband had lost his job and, although he was attempting to work from home as a recruiter, he hadn’t made any placements to earn any commissions. Even though my former mother-in-law was well aware of the financial stress my ex-husband’s lack of employment had placed on our fledgling marriage and she owned a home in Tuscon as well as a vacation home in Ruidoso, New Mexico, she could never seem to find her credit card when we dined out. One night during her visit, my ex-husband had invited a bunch of his friends to an upscale steakhouse in Beverly Hills and when the check came, grabbed it from the center of the table in a grand, swooping gesture. He handed it to me under the table and whispered in my ear, “Got this, Boo?”

Then I thought about a terrible law partner I’d worked for at a former job for a few more kilometers. I remembered a time when I was a junior associate working on a team with several other partners. I had cited-checked references in a motion to a deposition transcript that had been since been revised into final form. I found a reference that had been changed in the final deposition transcript was concerning and went to the lead partner to point it out several times. He shoo’ed me away each time saying, “I don’t have time! We have to get the other motion in shape!” I tried to ask the other partner working on it and he assured me, “your motion is fine! The other one is a disaster!” A day or so after it was filed, the lead partner called me and the other partner into his office. “How did this happen?” He threw the motion across the room at us. The reference I’d tried to point out was concerning, indeed. He offered to let me blame the paralegal for “my mistake.” I declined.

I rounded the corner at the top of a smaller hill at 27 kilometers to go and the aids station was blaring the John Denver song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Tears welled in my eyes, but I knew crying wasn’t productive. So I bargained with myself: “Self, if you make it to the finish line, you can have yourself good cry there, okay? Heave sobs. Break down however you want.” But now, I didn’t have time for that. I couldn’t afford the energy or breath tears would take. I had to keep going. I kept on running, but instead of mulling over resentments in my head, I silently sang to myself “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” I told myself that if I could make it to 12 kilometers from the finish, it would take race officials removing me from the course to get me to stop. There was one last big hill, Polly Shortts.

After that, I seemed to struggle less. The sun was going down and it didn’t seem as hot. I hit 25 kilometers to go, then 20 kilometers, then 15 kilometers. At 12 kilometers to go, I heard a voice behind me say, “Hey there!” It was Abe. He’d had a cramp but had kept looking for my orange baseball cap and finally caught up with me. At our last cut-off with 10 kilometers to go, we knew we’d make it if we kept on as we were. We walked up the last hill. At the top, we began to run again and Abe started to pull ahead.

“You go ahead; this is all I got left,” I told him.

“Absolutely not. We’re staying together,” he replied.

We didn’t talk much after that. It was getting dark and there were crowds of people cheering all around. I kept moving forward and counted to 100 over and over in my mind. Every cell in my body wanted to be finished.

At five kilometers, we could see the stadium and the finish line. We went down a hill and fed into a chute leading to the stadium. After long moments of moving in slow motion, we crossed the finish line at 11:41. Abe gave me a hug and repeated three times, “You’re tough.”

“Yeah,” was all I could say in response. Too spent to do or say much of anything, I forewent my hard-won promise of a miniature nervous breakdown. I just wanted to sit.

The following day, I lounged around the hotel recuperating, first watching the clouds turn purple, pink and orange as the sun rose over the Indian Ocean, then watching the stars of the Southern Cross come out over the water after sunset.

I still can’t tell you exactly why I did this thing or, frankly, how I did it. Without a doubt, I will be forever thankful for the kindly Buffalo Chips, especially Abe and Linda, who helped get me through the race. It was a true experience of ubuntu, a Zulu word translated as “I am because we are.” And whatever I’d come there to find, I believe I found. For one thing, I got un-stuck. In the handful of years that followed, I transitioned to a new job I still have today; I bought my own home; and I got married and had a daughter. But more importantly, I found an inner pilot light I never knew I had. Something inside me I could turn to during times of sorrow, like when I sat by the bedside of my dying father, or during times of challenge, like the first months after bringing my baby daughter home from the hospital. Something to remind me to keep moving forward, to do my best, to remember where I am now and how far I’ve come, to embrace and enjoy my life in all of its aspects.