Comrades 2018

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  • Mc HillyMc Hilly ✭✭✭
    Danni, sorry to hear the injury flared up, definitely sounds as if you made the right decision, and hope that you get it sorted soon
  • marty74marty74 ✭✭✭
    Nice work lowez, well done on finishing well within the time....

    As for me, had a go at sub 9 but wasn't to be as had hard time from pinetown onwards. But rallied towards the end for a 9.24 and new down run PB so well chuffed with day.

    Couldn't eat anything last night but watch out breakfast this morning, I'm coming to eat you soon.......

    Hope everyone else had awesome day. Great to have a chat with Mac3 on route as well.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Marty, what a splendid result :) I learned that the task of setting up that second half drive for glory is an arduous but very achievable task, but boy is it a challenge bringing it home.

    Breccy is indeed going to be devastated shortly!

    A  pb on this extended down run course is amazing :)
  • Morning all,  I fly out of Durban at 3pm and I have a few people to visit before I go.  I’m a doubtful attendee for the post race breakfast catch up which is really what I run Comrades to earn the right to do!  Very sad I won’t see many of you this time round but it was great being part of the 2018 RW crew once again! Bring on 2019
  • After struggling with any fitness this last year or so and my last marathon was 5:20...I was worried...in the last month I started a new fitness regime..lost a stone and started finding my core...it was enough to give me some hope...I sailed through my first marathon in 5 hours and was worried I had gone off too hard...but I felt positive the whole way...stopped for massages every 5 k or so to keep my legs from seizing up and was chuffed to get in in 11:37...legs and left Achilles feeling trashed...it was a long slow walk back to the hotel last night....and will be up to the mugg and bean this morning...hubby took it easy and was pleased to get his back to back with 10:27
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Seren, so pleased you landed that, what great results for you both :)
  • Well done everyone. 

    Dannirr - as you say,right decision to make and now to get it sorted as you’ve lots planned. Good luck with it all. 

    Great at result for me. 11h 48. Evenly paced throughout ( mainly because I didn’t have time to dawdle!!) but I found it really tough all day long. My head wasn’t in the right place most of the day but thrilled I kept going. A pb for me too. Met slow duck on the course. Had to keep asking if buses were in front or behind and how we were doing for time. You did scare me when you said we had 2 mins to spare and that was ages out ?  

    see some of you later at mugg and bean
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Snail, wonderful result, pb on this extended course is exemplary behaviour :) you did a brilliant job!
  • Bike ItBike It ✭✭✭
    Well done all.  Great to hear these stories coming in.  

    Dannir - a good decision and best wishes getting your hip sorted.

    Lowrez - was it you wearing the Union Jack and cap and white sun-glasses? - if so then I manage to spot you on the SABC coverage.

    Seren - good to hear you could finish well this year after last year's injury

    Nice PB Marty

    SouthernSnail - Great result and good to see you run evenly paced


    I watched on TV for the race leaders coming in and the significant cut-offs.  The expression on the faces of the finishers ranges from euphoria, happiness, relief  to collapse.  I know what happens to get to the start and in the preceding 89km though and that is always what I can admire.  

    I visited my doctor (8 medals) this weekend - actually for my daughter.  He has told me my heart and lungs are functioning well and has sent me for a back X-ray to find the source of pain.

  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    That was me Bike It :) Hope it was first half when I was still standing upright! The crowd loved my effort at patriotism... Got a lot of comments concerning rugby for some reason :) ? :) ? Best of 3 will get see us win out :) Hope all goes well with your recovery!
  • I was following you all yesterday (yes, even set my alarm for 4:15 to watch the start). It’s never easy and with the extra kms even harder on the head. Well done to all of you - hope the legs aren’t too bad this morning. Dannir - you’ll be back to fight another day, the timing of that injury was so unlucky this year, but you definitely made the right choice. 

    Have one of of those huge muffins in Mugg and Bean for me  B)
  • Bike ItBike It ✭✭✭
    Yes Lowrez- it was you I saw and I immediately thought that could be you.  I saw you on the SABC coverage at about 11:52-11:54 just coming into the the stadium.  You were in a couple of shots.  You looked very happy then!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    RR can I have a hug too?

    Sensed your vibes pushing us to that line :) drop in some time; the water's fine despite the extra ks
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Those moments are some of the best in life Bike It (as you of course know yourself). I was playing it up to the crowd having spotted I still had 5 minutes in hand... Nearly fell flat on my face a couple of times as I stopped paying attention to what me feet were doing and they were keen to cease operations :)
  • superb effort everyone - I hope you're not too stiff today

    Lowrez - I love your calmness at cutting fine every year and carrying on smiling! 

    Seren - I'm super chuffed for you. Pleased Terry had a good day out! 

    Looking forward to the race reports! 
  • Debra BourneDebra Bourne ✭✭✭
    edited June 2018
    Great to see so many of you her this year. Sympathies, Dannirr, but definitely the right decision if you were haveing problems that early on. Well done everyone who finished!

    Quite happy with my 10:22, cutting 14 minutes off last year's time and going sub-10:30. It was amazing when about eight of us found ourselves together and ran with each other for a mile or two in a little British 'bus'. Great to spot lowrez along the course as well. Thank you Becca & Stuart for pulling me through for about the 20 miles before Fields Hill - set me up for a good run from there on. Played leapfrog with the 10:30 'bus' for the last 13 miles or so, but finally beat them because they were having walking breaks in the last 5K while I went with the same strategy on that section as last year: "it's a parkrun from here - you can run a parkrun!"
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Currently waiting at the airport for my passport to arrive by taxi having left it in the hotel safe. The drama continues- will I make cutoff for my flight home?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Ok I'll make it home on schedule, Comrades has frazzled my brain more than usual this year but at least I remembered halfway to the airport enabling a reasonable rescue plan to be executed :)
  • 1owrez said:
    Currently waiting at the airport for my passport to arrive by taxi having left it in the hotel safe. The drama continues- will I make cutoff for my flight home?
    this might just the most lowrez post ever, especially with you just making it on time 

  • Lowrez - hope you went to the right airport ?great to chat to you earlier. Have a good flight 
  • lowrez: !!!!! Very pleased your passport made it to your flight on time. Here's hoping for no more dramas and a safe journey home.
  • Mc HillyMc Hilly ✭✭✭
    Lowrez, I hope the rest of your journey is uneventful!
  • Mc HillyMc Hilly ✭✭✭
    I fly out at 11:30am tomorrow, if anyone is going at approximately the same time and is interested in sharing transport, let me know 
  • Lowrez - of course you can have a hug - and an extra one for the added drama!

    What’s the verdict on the new finish venue? Good atmosphere?
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Mr Z apart from my first year, and still my pb at this merlarkey, I have always set out with plans of better than 11:5x but somehow things always conclude in that end zone. Becca pointed out that I probably remain on track to become the green number with the highest aggregate finish time, although I repeat i am in no way attempting to achieve that :)
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Thanks RR I am already looking forward to the next event where I can cash in :):)

    Spectacular venue but the Comrades layout must have been done by a souless non-runner; international area way back behind the finish area, remote from the action. No use made at all of the field space inside the stadium apart from the run in and finish, so there was only crowd on one side, in the stadium seats. They could easily have put crowd/finishers/ internationals in that space and made it much more personal.

    Plus! To get into the International space you had to climb right up the steps of the stadium to the entrance, just what you need after 90k of effort, no handrail either for a wobbler like me. 

    And as for the irrigation, education, health improvements...
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    SS currently at gate 10 Joburg about to board for Amsterdam. Lovely to see you again, you gotta come back again, you just gotta :)
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Thanks McH and Debra, I think it's odds on me making it home ok now, plus I have a taxi booked from Manchester to home, so no danger of me falling asleep at the wheel - I hope my driver isn't just back from Comrades too though.
  • I'm back in the office today and feeling pretty sore after a flight alongside so many other Comrades!

    Really good to see so many of you again and meet some new faces.  Thanks again for the lift Terry 

    In terms of the race, this was my toughest of the four.   I expected it to be harder because I hadn't reached the volume I wanted,  I'd also missed Three Forts (my fitness bell weather) and my taper was more of a giant step down all  of which meant my head wasn't in the best place to begin with.  I'd acknowledge to myself it was due to be a grind-it-out kind of day but that was far worse than planned.   The hills on Sunday seemed longer and steeper to me than I'd remembered, time dragged on and on over sections of the course and I even felt cold at times long after the sun came up. 

    I finished in 10:06 in the end and I was very happy.  Fantastic to finish in MM  - felt the extra km or two was well worth it (in hindsight definitely)  

    Safe travels home everyone.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    Back home now, but nursing a sore knee an air stewardess attempted to amputate with a drinks trolley (I reckon she'd been at the contents). Pain was so bad for a while that I refused the dinner that was following it as I bit into the fabric of the chair in front - she just sailed on merrily grinning after an "oo was that your knee?" And what is the word for this bizarre coincidence; whilst playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire a little later the question "The patella is the medical term for which bone in the body" came up! 
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