Comrades success

It's a long time since I posted here, but I'm back. I felt the need to write about my running experiences, because I know how much I appreciate reading other blogs from people like me, who battle with weight, and finding the time to run, who will never be an elite runner until they are the only one left running in their 80s...

We travelled along the highway to Pietermaritzburg over the weekend, and as I caught glimpses of sections of the R103 alongside, it felt like that road wrapped itself around me like external veins, on my arms and legs. Even though I have only run the Comrades once (yay I'm not a Comrades novice any more!) we ran sections of the route plenty of times in training, and I remember the people and the sights and smells of different parts of the route.

This picture was taken on my 2 km shakeout run the day before Comrades. It's the corner of the famous Nedbank Green mile, and happens to be 200m from my home, so I am VERY familiar with this section of the route. I prefer it quiet and lonely like it was in this picture though - the next day it looked like this:

Not that I can vouch for this, of course, because the runner in the picture is the man who won the race, and I was waaay back at this stage.

But I feel a familiarity with the route, that somehow becomes more real every time I  see sections of the route. I can stake a claim to the road, I can say I put my stamp on it, and I can own the experience. I belong to the race and the race belongs, in some small fraction of a share, to me.

How about you? Hve you run Comrades and what did it mean, to you?