Ladysmith runners take on the Comrades Marathon

Many enthusiastic, keen runners braved the bitter cold in Pietermaritzburg on Sunday for the start of the 2018 Comrades Marathon.

This year was a ‘down-run’ from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, with the route being longer than usual and finishing at the Moses Mabhida Stadium, instead of the famous Kindsmead Stadium. The 90km marathon saw 20,000 runners take to the roads with great endurance and perseverance.

Ladysmith Athletic Club (LAC) had 12 runners finishing the race and we caught up with some of them, who told us about their race experience.

Geoffrey Cooke-Tonnesen (age 33) completed his first Comrades.

For Geoffrey, it started just over a year ago, saying he was unhealthy and overweight, and took on his first Park Run. At the end of February last year, he found that he couldn’t even run 100m.

At the end of last year, he decided he wanted to run the Comrades and started training in January this year with Casper Kempen and Shaun Montgomery, who are his close friends. Geoffrey says that the race had huge support and the huge crowd created a great vibe. He added that the last few kilometres were really tough.

“Everything after 60km felt really long, but enough training was done so that I had no problem during the race and finished in 11 hours and 20 minutes.”

He says he will be going back next year to take on the race again. He says a huge thank you to Casper and Shaun, with Casper training him and coaching him for the race. He also thanks his wife Pagan for looking after their children while he was training for the race.

Casper Kempen completed his 13th race in a good time of eight hours and 55 minutes, with Geoffrey saying that Casper lives for the Comrades and runs hard, following his plan on the road. Shaun Montgomery finished the race in 10 hours and 26 minutes.

12 Emnambithi Striders runners took part in this year’s race

Chaman Ramphal enjoyed the race and says the weather was perfect, with conditions reaching high humidity as the runners approached Durban. He is proud to have received his 16th Comrades medal. He has four more Comrades to complete in order to receive his Double Green number. The Double Green number is allocated to runners when they complete 20 Comrades Marathons.

Neville has completed his 10th Comrades and was very happy to receive his Green number.

Among the finishers was Mbongiseni, who ran his fourth race; Makhanya and Naresh ran their third race; and Salesh completed his second race.

The runners say they always enjoy the support and encouragement they receive from the spectators.

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