PINETOWN Girls High School educator Layle Cathey will tackle her 12th Comrades Marathon. Her main driving force behind running the ultimate human race this year is to support her training partner, Natasha Reinhardt, who is running her second Comrades, but first Up Run.

For someone who has not done the Up Run since 2015, the Pinetown District Athletics Club member said it feels like a new challenge again.

With her demanding work, she said she does not balance her work life and running life well.

“It is a real struggle finding time to train when it conflicts with my school commitments and my son’s extramurals. My Saturday morning long training runs are my saving grace,” she said.

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Although the number of women participating in Comrades has improved significantly since 1975 (when they were allowed to run the race), Cathey said women are still very under-represented and outnumbered by men.

According to Cathey, the problem is training takes up a lot of time and stereotypically women are the caregivers expected to run the household.

“Pregnancy and raising newborns also makes training impossible (for example, I took a seven-year gap after my son’s birth). The reality is that for a mum to train, she has to have a partner willing to look after the kids and household. I am fortunate to have a supportive husband who takes care of our son while I train,” said the mother.

She attributed her love for running to her supportive family.

“My dad, Kim Henderson, ran 26 Comrades and his brother Rohan ran 16, so we grew up supporting them. My dad was my main inspiration for attempting Comrades in the first place.”

Her in-laws also have a long history with the race.

“My father-in-law Peter ran 10 Comrades, my brothers-in-law Mark and Garth ran nine and 20 respectively, my sister-in-law Carmen has run two and my dear hubby Tyron has achieved five Comrades medals.

“It seems like Comrades is part of the Cathey genes! It’s very special having family from both sides share a passion for this amazing race.”

Her most memorable experience was her first Comrades in 2007.

“I was running with an ITB issue (an overuse injury causing pain on the outer knee or hip), and my dad was running it with me despite having knee troubles.

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“In all honesty neither of us should have run that year, but (as all runners will agree) runners are stubborn creatures who will ignore painful niggles. So we hobbled through what was to be my dad’s slowest and final Comrades, finishing in 11hrs26. That year Comrades was on Father’s Day, so as a daddy-daughter experience, this was a day I will always treasure,” she said.

She added that her goal for Comrades is always, firstly, to finish and hopes she might be inspiring future female Comrades runners, especially the learners at her school.

“I am not a fast runner, so a sub-11 hour is always a bonus. I would like to think that there’s enough muscle memory built up now to maybe give me a bit of an edge in this respect, however, there are so many factors that come into play on the day.

“You have to respect Comrades or it will not respect you back … Comrades is as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one, so you have to train your brain to push through adversity,” explained Cathey.

She said your body will inevitably get tired in a race as long as this, so you have to be able to tell yourself to keep moving forward.

“If you can, try running with a smile on your face: studies show that smiling creates endorphins which limit pain receptors. I tried this in the last 20ks of my 10th Comrades and I swear it worked!

“I am sure I looked like an idiot with a goofy grin on my face, but I felt great and achieved my Green Number on such an emotional high!” she recalled.

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