An Actual Race Report

It just occurred to me that a race report with some actual facts might be more useful for a rational person than the deranged ramblings that I produce so dependably. Or, at least, it will provide me with a shred of evidence in my favor for the mental illness commitment hearing.

Cory and I started in the fourth corral (seeding group) out of eight. Still, it took us over 3 minutes to reach the starting line. A big part of the reason is that the race officials enforced the seeding every bit as effectively as they enforced the race rule that no one could wear a hat or visor unless it had the logo of the race sponsor, Reebok. Which is to say, they did not make even a token effort to enforce either rule. So about half of the people starting in front of us were seeded behind us.

It turns out, that was a good thing. Besides taking 3:15 to reach the start line, we also had about a half mile of alternating walking and running before it spread out enough to run continuously, and that let us ease into the race and gradually speed up to a comfortable pace, rather than the typical situation of starting out fast from adrenaline and excitement and having to try to pull back on the throttle.

We had made a plan before the race to alternate 10 minutes of running with 2 minutes of walking throughout the race, except where the hills made that impractical. Of course, since the first 25 miles of the race are one continuous hill, with three mountains and a few flat areas thrown in, our plan was--even in our own minds--more of a wishful thought than a practical expectation.

My biggest surprise was how close we were able to come to the plan. We ran 25 or 30 minutes before our first walk break, but that included the walk/run at the start and was at a very easy pace.

The first "mountain" on the course is Cowie's Hill, at about 8 miles. It rises about 450 feet in a little under a mile. We walked the bulk of the hill, but began running about a quarter mile from the top where it started to get less steep. Being an asshole, I said to Cory, as we jogged past some walking South African runners, in a voice loud enough for them to hear, "When does Cowie's Hill start?" Cory replied, "We're already on it." To which I said, again loud enough to carry to the other runners, "Geez, this is nothing compared to Heartbreak Hill!" (We had been told multiple times that Heartbreak Hill at Boston would be considered a flat stretch at the Comrades Marathon. In fact, that was true, but I wasn't going to admit it to the South Africans.)

There were a few stretches where we ran 12 - 14 minutes because of a nice downhill, and we walked Field's Hill (2 miles, rising 800 feet) and Botha's Hill (1 mile rising 400 feet), but we generally stayed with the 10 and 2 schedule through the first half of the race.

We hit halfway at 5:03. According to several advisory blogs, that put us at a finish time of just under 11 hours, which was our goal. The funny thing, though, was the 10 and 2 schedule was not any harder to do and, because of rolling terrain, and hence more downhills, we were running faster while still feeling like we were running comfortably.

I timed each 5K of the race, as a way of checking how consistent we were--it's long enough not to be too influenced by an uphill or a downhill but short enough to provide sufficient data points. What I discovered was surprising, in a positive way. Here are the 5K times through the first 60 kilometers of the race:

5K 37:03 10K 35:43 15K 34:18

20K 32:33 25K 39:24 (includes Field's Hill --800 feet up in 2 miles)

30K 33:20 35K 35:06 (includes Botha's Hill--400 feet up in 1 mile)

40K 33:16 45K 33:45 50K 33:34

55K 31:20 60K 31:30

Halfway was at 43.5K. As you can see, we were getting stronger the further we ran. This is not because we are such he-men (sadly), but because the race strategy of staying out of oxygen debt and not letting our legs take a pounding on the downhills was paying dividends. By 60K, the temperature was getting above the comfortable range for me, and we were on a long stretch of the course with no shade, so I had to slow down. I am pleased to say that Cory did not. More proof of the soundness of our strategy.

Cory volunteered to stay with me as I slowed down, so I had to pull the old "I'm right behind you; just keep running" ruse, then hide behind other runners so that he had to go ahead on his own. (If you look at the race from the proper perspective, I really was right behind him, in that I was much closer to him than, say, the west coast of Australia) Even though I slowed down, I was running the 5K segments in 35 to 37 minutes. Cory, I can estimate, was running them in 30 - 31 minutes.

Then there was Polly Shortts--the last named hill. It was about a mile long and a rise of 300 feet, making it the least steep of the hills, but at nearly 50 miles into the race, it is a hill that everybody walks. Some runners run 50 or 100 yards of Polly as some sort of macho thing, but the reality is that Polly always wins. We met a guy who ran a time of 7 hours 5 minutes (a pace of 7:52 per mile) and I asked him, "Did you walk any of the race?" He looked at me like I was slow-witted and replied, "I walked Polly's, of course."

Even walking Polly's, my second half was only 15 minutes slower than my first half and Cory's second half was 12 minutes faster than his first half.

As Cory and I prepare for the Leadville 100, I am a believer in the strategy from Comrades. You don't help yourself by going out fast to "put time in the bank". As long as you are ahead of the cutoff times and running comfortably, you are where you want to be. As the race goes on, the cutoff times get longer, so simply by maintaining your pace you build your cushion.

I also want to voice my agreement with Cory about the Comrades experience. So many nice and helpful people. Such a great running atmosphere. Such a memorable course. A special experience that I recommend to anyone who can make the trip.

Home Again in In-dyah'-na

What can I say? The race went well; the trip went well; we didn't screw up anything of importance. (I don't consider leaving my passport in the seat pocket on the plane a screw-up of importance.) To what do I attribute this uncharacteristic behavior of Cory and me? Well, partly to the fact that we understand that "Cory and myself" would be an improper use of the reflexive case, despite its disturbing popularity of usage. Certainly, good grammar is a crucial element in any success--just listen to the interviews of any successful athlete. But more important than that, even, is the fact that, shortly after our arrival in South Africa, we were exposed to a mantra that totally changed our core beliefs.

I even have a picture of that life-altering mantra:

NO!!! NOT THAT MANTRA!!! If we had started living our lives by that mantra, it would have required us to reverse every aspect of our existences. It would have been like reversing the polarity of the earth's magnetic core. Like mixing matter and anti-matter. The entire universe would have disappeared in one gigantic fireball.

No, here is the actual picture of the life-changing mantra we discovered:

From the moment we left the airport parking lot, we were surrounded by trucks with a sign that said "ABNORMAL." Now, maybe I'm paranoid, but it seems to me that when people half a world away know you're nuts before they've even met you, it's a pretty strong indicator that some serious self-evaluation is in order. Or at least a brief respite from some of the more obviously delusional behaviors. And that, dear friends, is why there is a mental institution/prison/trauma ward in South Africa today with two empty spaces.

And, speaking of Abnormal, let me tell you about the language they speak in South Africa. It's like they aren't even trying to speak like Americans. What's up with that? Don't they realize where the English language comes from?

For example, while South African Airlines was wonderful--helpful cabin attendants; good food and snacks; unlimited beer, wine, juice, soda, and water; individual TVs with tons of movies to choose from--they put us on a plane with no overhead compartments or overhead bins and no window shades. Yeah, I know--hard to believe, but true. Instead, they gave us some lame "overhead lockers" and "window shutters." Sure, they seemed to be just as good as bins and shades, but if they weren't inferior, why would they have such funny names?

And when we were changing planes in Jo-Burg, I saw an airport shop that had a sign "Air Times at Till." Come on, man! What sort of language is that? I was going to go into the shop and get to the bottom of this strange pidgin English, but I couldn't tell whether or not the store would have the airline departure times shown at the cash registers, so I didn't want to take a chance on missing my flight. (You'd think that a shop in an airport would let customers know if they had airline departure times available in the store.)

And once we got to Durban, we found that their driving was as bizarre as their language. They required us to drive on the LEFT side of the road! In a car with the steering wheel on the RIGHT! And a gear shift to the driver's LEFT! I was about to tell them what bozos they were as a nation until Cory made the astute observation that they really didn't have a choice. Because they are south of the equator, they have to drive on the left. It's called the Corialis Effect, he said. Otherwise, the earth would spin out of its orbit.

There is a lot to be said about the race itself, but the thing I'd like to start with is how well we were received. The people at the Comrades House went out of their way to look out for us. A local running club president found us a ride to Durban the day before the race with a group from a running club from northern South Africa. One of us not named Jim left a bag of items he had bought on a table in registration and forgot about it until the next day, and the lady at the table not only kept it for him, but she and the ladies at the next table tried to track us down to return it. And during the race itself, people cheered for us both by name (our first names were on our race numbers) and by calling out "In-DYAH'-na" as we ran past--apparently a South African term that means "goofball-that-needs-looking-out-for." Also popular was "Indiana Jones!" Steven Spielberg, your marketing prowess is second to none! To my amazement, there was in fact one guy who called out "Hoosiers" (he looked a lot like Gene Hackman, now that I think about it) and one guy who sang, "Indiana wants me; Lord, I can't go back there." Now, that guy is somebody you want on your team for any music trivia competition!

I will be publishing an additional post with an extensive mathematical analysis showing that Cory and I performed with superhuman excellence at the race, complete with scatterplot display and statistical modeling, but for now let me just say, we feel lucky about the race and the trip and want to admit that we duped people like crazy into thinking we were okay guys. THANK YOU, ALL OF YOU FOLKS WHO TREATED US BETTER THAN WE DESERVED.