My Facebook post on the eve of 2017 Comrades Marathon

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This year I am running my 3rd consecutive Comrades. Towards the end of 2010 I found myself visiting the doctor and I did not understand what was happening to my body, I was weighing over 95kgs. The doctor told me my BP was too high and I had hypertension. I had to wait for a few days for some of the blood test results on cholesterol level, diabetes etc. The doctor advised me to change my diet and also to walk during weekends. I work in a call centre where I would sit from about 7:30am and would work overtime up to 6pm most of the days. In October 2010, I moved to a complex approximately 2.5km from my work place. Around that time construction began at our work campus and it meant that we had to park off site and take a shuttle to work or just walk to the office during peak time. This situation turned to be a blessing in disguise for me. I then decided to park my car at home and I started walking to work. Sometimes when I was late, I would run to work and whenever I wanted to go up or down to the flat I would take the stairs instead of the lift. A guard at the complex at home asked me, why I would park two cars and then walk every day to work and I just laughed. This is the second time I started running. To me running was the cheapest form of exercise and if you want you can even run without shoes. To be honest running also has it occupational hazards, In 2015 I was mugged and my cellphone was stolen when I was jogging in Pretoria Central and also I was once nearly run over by a taxi which started to reverse when I was passing behind it.


At school I was never an athlete for most of my schooling until when I was in O’level. I started running by accident. I realised that any study material I found difficult, I could study and understand the material better If I read it first thing in the morning. My school Nyameni Secondary School was just under 6km from my mother’s home. I would then run most of the way to school just to make it in time. Getting late to school was out of the question as corporal punishment was acceptable at that time. In my final O’level year, during the athletics season, everyone was forced to run the marathon. I came first in my age category and my sister who was two grades behind me also did very well. My mother did not encourage our running as she wanted us to concentrate on academics. Our school athletics team was also invited to the affluent Peterhouse College (we used to call it Cakehouse) for a marathon run. I went on to represent my school at Dairibord Zimbabwe sponsored provincial marathon and I did not make it to the provincial team.

For my A ‘level studies I was accepted at Marondera High School a former group A school (equivalence of a model C school in South Africa). The new school was just over 7km from home. At that time this was the only day formal school that could accept boys for A ‘level in the whole town. When the lower 6 form started the Athletics season was over. At group A schools sports were a big thing. The following year in my final A ‘level year it was also voluntary-compulsory for everyone to run. The very first marathon, I ran faster and after a few kilometres I realised that no one was following me and I was lost. I was called in for punishment, if I remember correctly the teacher who was in charge of sports was Mr Madhiri. I explained to him that I had participated but I got lost and by some luck he believed me. I went on to run another marathon at school and came first, ran inter-house competitions and ran anything from 400metres relay and upwards. We had about 7 other Group A schools that we would compete with in our group. I remember boarding our school bus to Lomagundi College and Watershed College for athletics. The final event I participated in was the Dairibord Zimbabwe provincial marathon that was hosted at our school and I did not make the cut into the provincial team.

 In 1999 during the Insurance Institute of Zimbabwe annual sporting weekend in Harare, there was a 10km road race sponsored by AIG Zimbabwe. I practised for a few weeks and I ran the race and came third and I got $500 Zimbabwean dollars and it was a decent amount back then. So I visited AIG’s new offices at Westgate Shopping centre to have my cheque opened and I was impressed. One of the managers who signed my cheque was Mr Taffy Mathews who would become my future claims manager the following year when I joined AIG. I did not run again for many years to come.
In 2014 I joined the running club at work. My very first race was the Denel 21.1km race in Centurion. I ran well for the first 5km and I walked most of the race. I wanted to quit on the 10km mark but I kept on running and walking and I completed the race in under 3 hours. Towards the end of 2014 I decided to enter for the 2015 Comrades uphill race. Going into my first Comrades, I only ran one qualifying race in January 2015 and my time for the 42.2km at the Akasia race was around 4 hours 56 minutes. I only did a couple of 25 km trainings. Most of the runs I did were 15km and below. On the evening of 20 March 2015 I ended up at Unitas Hospital Emergency rooms after a nasty fall when I tripped on small rocks early in the evening luckily the doctor said I did not need any stiches on my mouth.

I do not trust experts that much, I was not worried that I did not practice the recommended distance or practised on hills. The day before my first comrades was scary, I started expressing self- doubt if I could do this and I barely slept that night. I arrived early at the starting line. I met this guy from Canada who told me that he had barely practiced outdoors due to the cold weather in Canada. This conversation was very important to me, I was feeling sorry for myself but here was a guy who had barely practiced and had flown thousands of miles just to be part of this event. By the time we sang Shosholoza I was in the race. My last two races I have started in the last seeding. So 20 years after I finished High School, I ran my first Comrades race. When we started running I did not stop at the first 3 water points and I had to be careful not to fall, Imagine almost 20 000 runners ahead of you dropping plastics with water on the tarmac which became very slippery. I ran well for the first plus or minus 25km up to the first serious hill out of Pinetown. I kept on saying to myself “keep on moving”. What I normally do when I run up hill, I do not look all the way up, and I just look just a few meters ahead so that I do not get intimidated. It was such a good feeling to overtake runners that were in the seedings ahead of me and this motivated me to keep on going. After about 45km I was exhausted and even small up runs felt like I was running up the Vumba Mountains or Inyanga Mountains and I started walking all uphills and ran whenever it was flat or when it was downhill. I made it in just over 10 hours 38 minutes.


In 2016 I was better prepared, I ran four qualifying races and I improved my qualifying time to about 4 hours 20 minutes however I forgot to upgrade my qualifying time with Comrades so they took the Soweto 2015 marathon result that was 5 hours so I was in the last seeding again. Exactly two weeks before the 2016 comrades, I picked up an injury on my left knee. On the race day, I ran the first half very well and I thought I would make it in just over 9 hours. After that everything went south as I started feeling pain on the left knee and I could only run when it was flat or downhill and walk uphill. I started stopping at all medics along the way and this lady bandaged my left knee to support it and I kept on going. About 10km to go, the pain was so much. I could no longer run even downhill and I started limping towards the finish line and it seemed like everyone was now overtaking me. I realised that I could no longer make it within 11 hours for the bronze medal. With about 2km to go this guy started telling me something crazy, he said that even if he could no longer make it in 11 hours, if I started jogging now, I could still make it in less than 11 hours. I said to myself can't he see that I am limping. Instead of feeling sorry for me he was planting this crazy idea in my mind that I could still make it. This guy became my hero, my unknown soldier for the 2016 Comrades run. He reminds me of my late mum who would always keep on believing in me and telling me that I could pass those national exams and be someone in life. I started jogging and I felt the pain on the knee was not too bad. After about 500 metres I met my team mate who had also given up on making it less than 11 hours, I do not know how I convinced him and we started running and all the while busy looking at our watches. When I entered the stadium, the pain came back again and I wanted to stop and my team mate kept on encouraging me to keep on going. We made it to the finish line in 10 hours 58 minutes. If you saw us at the finishing line hugging you could think we had won lotto. It was okay to cry and feel sorry for one self after crossing finishing line.


My advice to novice Comrades runners on this eve, today is not the time for self-doubt. Today is the time for believing in oneself.  Only for today it’s okay to be a bit delusional and picture yourself as the best runner that was ever seen on this earth and have a good night sleep. Your training might not have gone the way you anticipated, it rarely never goes according to plan. Do not think too much about the hills that you have to go through even myself I do not know the height of all those hills, what I know is that I have to go through them one way or the other even if it means walking most of the hills. Remember like eating an elephant which is one bite at a time, going up those hills is about putting your best foot forward one step at a time. Keep on moving and listen to your body, talk to your fellow comrades especially if you do not feel well along the race. In my view running Comrades imitates life itself; you start the race very light with almost nothing except your positive attitude that you will cross the finish line on time. Along the way there are 45 water points and countless strangers who will cheer you along the way and some will even massage your legs and keep on encouraging you. I do not wish to dispute with what my excellent A ‘Level Chemistry teacher Mr Rimbi taught me 22 years ago, running Comrades has taught me that diamonds are not the strongest natural substance. Human determination and human endurance are the strongest “substances” in this world. Good luck to everyone for tomorrow. Thank you for joining the Comrades way of life.