Comrades 2026 Part 1
Never Again
After 11 hours of running and walking i had a cricked neck, aching legs but I had completed my second and back to back Comrades Marathon, 87kms of unforgiving hills and descents. The down run was my first in 2014 aged 50, with my new buddy Isaac, see image, followed by this one in 2015. It was hard, very hard. Never again i vowed to myself and others around me.
That was 11 years ago and I had been true to my word. I had continued over these years to run marathons and some ultras, ones without cut offs, ones you could take your time and even enjoy. I had no desire to do it again, I had even been back to South Africa a few times to see friends, the only pain experienced being a trip to see my uncle for the last time in 2021.
Even seeing and occasionally treating local runners training for their Comrades had little pull on me. Yet on one autumn run in October last year my running buddy, lets call him Mel, declared he wanted to do next years Comrades as it was the 100th running of it, an up run to commemorate the very first run made by a around 30 ex-soldiers in 1921 in honour of their fallen comrades in the Great War. They wanted to do something special, something more than a memorial or cenotaph, so they decided on a run from the town of Pietermaritzburg down to the coastal city of Durban. 90 kilometers starting at an elevation of 1750m, with rolling steep inclines of several kilometres, moving through an area known as the land of a 1000 hills. The first runner Bill Rowan completed it in just over 9 hours.
Word spread and more ex soldiers wanted to take part, the Comrades Marathon was born. Then a handful did it, now it is over 21000, the largest ultra with the mens winning time currently of 5:15 and the ladies of 5:44. Astonishing.
But we got it wrong 2026 is the 99th running but and this is a big but it was to be an up run, a repeat of my last and never again run.
I still wasn’t convinced, yet by the next day and quite a bit of badgering by Mel the idea had been seeded and began to grow.
Getting in the way of full blown commitment and excitement were a few things, we hadn’t actually got places yet and the slightly more tricky matter of me attempting it again 11 years later and at the ripe old age of 62.
Talk is cheap as the saying goes, and just wittering on about the race, hotels, safety etc means nothing until a place has been secured.
So early one October morning fingers and keyboards were poised for the inevitable onslaught and potential disappointment. However it was decidedly easy and in a few minutes I had a place for the 99th Comrades Marathon. Damn, now I have to actually train and see how this frame will cope.
In preparation I found a 3 month training plan online to give me a solid base before the hard months of February to end of May including a marathon qualifier.
My weekly training included 3-4 runs, Pilates, static bike and some strength and conditioning.
The runs ranged from a hill session, an easy run to a tempo 10k and a long run of no more than 9-10miles, usually my run on a Saturday to or from my Chelsea clinic. So a low mileage plan focussing on overall fitness and conditioning.
The underlying challenge was how to look after my body and to ease myself through the rigours of the training so that I am able to at least walk and talk after the run in June 2026. I would approach this challenge as an experiment, to see how i could do the months and months of training, look after my body and achieve the simple goal of just finishing the run in under the alloted 12 hours.
What could go wrong?
A great deal as it turns out.