De Beer proud of Comrades performance
She finished the race in 09:33:57.
Despite a difficult race, Qhubeka AC athlete Marionè de Beer expressed pride after finishing the Comrades Marathon down run on June 8, as the Sunward Park club’s first lady.
The 31-year old clocked 09:33:57 for a Robert Mtshali medal in her second ultimate human race. This was an improvement of 50:26 from last year’s up run, when she earned a bronze medal in 10:24:23 on her debut.
After clocking 04:02:15 at the TracN4 Elands Marathon to qualify for the 89.98km race, this meant De Beer would start in the second group after the Comrades Marathon Association introduced a batch start to manage the flow and safety of the runners.
After crossing the line in Durban, she was the 11th fastest time in group, which was a big achievement for the runner.
“Physically, the down run was much more difficult than last year’s up run, which later on became a mental challenge too. But I am still extremely proud of myself for pushing hard enough to become the 11th fastest female finisher in the whole of batch two,” she said.
The batch start allowed De Beer to cross the starting mat faster than she did in last year’s race, which saved her some time.
While some runners raised concerns about the new finish area, which was at Durban’s People’s Park, De Beer experienced not problems but prefers the normal stadium finish area because “it’s better and safer”.
“I personally loved the two batch start. I crossed the first mat at the start much faster than last year, which saved me a lot of time.
“I believe some of the finishers who finished closer to the cut off time said it was dark and crowded and extremely difficult to find their families, but to me it was smooth and easy,” said De Beer.
She encourages anyone to “run the ultimate human race at least once in their life because it is life changing”.
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