How it Went

When I got on the starting line on Saturday at 6 am for a 73-kilometer day, I hadn’t run in three days. And the last time I ran, I made it one kilometer before the snapping in the back of my knee kicked up and I had to hobble home feeling pathetic. After three cranky days of popping anti-inflammatories, icing to the point of freezer burn and smearing horse meds on my flank or leg or whatever, I didn’t have particularly high hopes that I would finish the marathon, let alone spring back for the half-marathon and 10 k later that day. On the 4+ hour drive to Lake Umuzi in Mphulanga province, Mike repeatedly turned around with a gleam in his eye saying, “Are ya ready for the challenge? Are ya?” I said, “I don’t know if I can even run one kilometer.” Mike was also injured (plantar fasciitis and Achilles something or other), but at least he could run in a straight line. The pain I could deal with, it was the snapping that was immobilizing.


Mike used to live in the town where the race was held. He took me to meet his runner friends and bragged to them that I was running my first Comrades in May. One of them said something snide sounding in Afrikaans and Mike replied in English, “only just.” I surmised the man had asked if I qualified and I felt very indignant by the exchange. Later I found out he asked a somewhat less insulting, “Is she old enough?” It’s a problem I have in this country- appearing to Southern African eyes to be about ten years younger than I am, coming off as something like a more believable Doogie Houser with a better theme song.

I dubiously went through all the pre-race rituals, pasta the night before, bananas in the morning, special socks, plus all that horse-and-advil-voodoo on my knee. I fell asleep early but if I shifted in the middle of the night, a sharp pain jolted me awake. I was nervous in the morning, not knowing how far I’d be able to make it . . . and not particularly wanting today to be the first day that rather than finishing a race on foot, getting hauled back in a medical vehicle. Mike gave me some pain pills to carry with me and take mid-race. I thought he was nuts, but it must be a South African thing, because another man offered me some mid-race.

Luckily, the course was flat. Well, maybe it wasn’t, but it’s the flattest thing I’ve run in Southern Africa. South Africans don’t believe in designing flat courses. In America, a fast, flat course is supposed to be a draw for runners. In South Africa, the hillier the better, and the courses loop and snake to make sure you climb and descend as many meters as possible at the steepest gradient the natural geography will allow.

For the first 10 k, the pain was distracting, but it was the longest I had been able to run without stopping in a week. Then it subsided into a dull nauseating ache in my knee and, for some reason, now my foot. By 30 k, the rest of my body caught up, so no particular pain seemed significant. At that point in a marathon you just hurt, no matter how slow you go, and I was going slow, trying to pace myself for the two races later that day. For part of the race I ran by a man who boasted he had a fractured bone in his foot. He said he was just going to run through it because it was too close to Comrades (the 89 k race I’m running in May) to rest and it was going to be his 20th. He bounded ahead on his broken metatarcel and I didn’t see him again. Lunatics, these South African runners.

I finished the marathon, and amazingly, I felt decent enough to continue with the next two races later that day. I stopped at the Medi-Clinic (South African hospital) tent where a nice lady iced and arnica-d me and then called over a medical professional of unspecified position to “do nice, special things for your knee.” She poked, prodded and contorted me, called it an inflamed meniscus, and warned that if I wanted to do Comrades, I’m better off calling it a day, resting a week and then resuming training. She also pointed out that my knee was swollen. Very. Front and back. Then she called over someone else- a physical therapist who is also a runner. The physical therapist thought it was IT band friction syndrome, but agreed with her predecessor on everything else. Then they taught me how to tape my knee and told me a type of brace I can get (or where to cut a hole in my current and apparently useless one). She apologized profusely for convincing me to drop out of the 3-in-1 challenge but assured me with a week of rest and a week of easy(er) runs, I should be able to run the 2 Oceans Marathon (at 56k, my first ultra) in three weeks, and the Comrades.

I met up with Mike who ran 3:11 on his injured foot. He nodded when I told him the verdicts and prophecies of the Medi-Clinic tent, but I could tell he was thinking, “lame.” And he gave some half-hearted, “Yeah, you run anymore today, then you’ll have to take a month to recover,” but I could tell he was thinking, “wimp.” Mike limped his half marathon in 2 hours. Just by the times, you could tell he was in pain- 3:11 marathon, 2 hour half marathon- you do the math. But he stayed on for the 10k because it was his fifth year doing the race and he would get his permanent number this year. I think that is another South African running phenomenon- if you run a particular race for a certain number of years, any time you do that race from then on, you get the same number to wear on your shirt and no one else can ever have that number.

I spent the remainder of the day feeling pathetic and lazy for only running a marathon. And only in South Africa, can one feel pathetic and lazy for “only” running a marathon. The lunacy is definitely contagious.