A wise man dressed as Lulu once wrote...
On Tuesday, 24th May 1921 the first Comrades Marathon was staged. It was a down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. 47 entries, 34 starters, 16 finishers.
No one knew what would happen to those pioneering souls during the course of that day as they proceeded down the hill and out of sight. The first leader crossing the bridge over the Umsinduzi River was Butcher Purcell followed by Harry Phillips and Bill Rowan.
Leaving the city a dusty sand road meandered over the hills and through the valleys all the way to Durban. Purcell, Phillips and Rowan were still together at Cato Ridge, but, by the foot of Inchanga, Purcell had fallen two minutes behind. As the two leaders left Drummond, Rowan went into the lead.
Through Gillitts and Pinetown followed by a convoy of bicycles, motorcycles and cars Rowan increased the distance between himself and Phillips who was plagued by a persistent knee injury.
Covered in brown suffocating dust, but undeterred, Rowan finally strode down West Street at the head of the convoy to the finish line outside the City Hall. His time was 8h 59m.
On Sunday, 13th June 2021, the centenary year, the 95th Comrades Marathon will be a down run.
Time to get your running shoes on folks!
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Comments
I'm in, but not necessarily in that dress!
I've forgotten how to set up email notifications of new posts. Any advice? Maybe I'll get it right in the meantime.
At least we know we are all in already, takes the stress of when they open entries in October this time....
And I bet we all go for rooms which we can cancel easy, this time around
Have to say, yesterday really brightened up my weekend. Thank you Comrades for being a ray of sunshine in this strange world at the moment. And brilliant running from everyone involved yesterday.
I'm in. Hopefully see you all next year.
As I didn't book a hotel until October last year, I'm not going to worry about that. And apparently the rugby isn't until the end of June so we shouldn't clash.
May leave all the bookings until a little later this time althoug did get all of our money back eventually this time.
However beware, the prices shown are about double their usual, (on both the hotel site itself, as well as Agoda) so I think they are hoping to catch a few suckers. Their other group hotel, Blue Waters, is showing normal prices! So, I'll just keep checking occasionally to see what happens on Agoda.