Snapshot …
Trembling at the start, listening to Chariots of Fire, and then hand on heart, singing the National Anthem with tears slowly rolling. Thoughts, doubts, worries, confidence and anguish, yet exhilaration all caught in one.“ Will I be good enough today?”
Snapshot …
Running along Harrison Flats in baking heat and desperately, feverishly trying to get information on how the athlete that I was coaching, Sarel Ackerman, was going up ahead. I was so proud.
Snapshot …
Flying towards Kingsmead in 2010, at the taxi rank coming off the highway, and spotting two runners who just started walking.“ Three odd kays to go and you’ re walking?” We had just more than ninety seconds to play with to clinch a silver, so I screamed at them, cajoled them, used some choice language( which I don’ t generally do) and hauled them along. Can you believe it, one of them actually finished ahead of me, and in the finish lanes, he turned around, came looking for me, outstretched hand, and with both of us, eyes leaking, he thanked me …
Snapshot …
A year later, and holding cancer survivor Peter Jaehne’ s hand all the way round on the soft grass to the finish at the Jan Smuts stadium as we crossed the line together for a silver. Later, Fordyce, Robb and I lay side by side with the rich liquid of saline drips running into our veins, and Fordyce pipes up,“ Hey Arnie … between the three of us, there are 13 Comrades wins here, and you have none of them!”
Snapshot …
Finish line, microphone in hand, screaming at the top of my lungs:“ TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE...” A singular gun shot rings out. Then it’ s just silence, bodies lying prone one side of a white line, as if a gunman had gone mad. Others being helped away on the other side of it. Exhausted ecstasy one side. Exhausted anguish on the other. Tired tears, Tired euphoria, and that eerie silence. One second made the difference. It always will at the Comrades.
Looking Back …
These are just some of my snapshots of a raging and ongoing love affair with the world’ s finest road race. I’ ve run the Boston Marathon, commentated on the New York Marathon, seen the London Marathon, been at an Olympic Marathon, and stood on the track at Olympia in Greece, but quite frankly, nothing, but nothing, comes close to Comrades. Nothing!
How else would you explain an 11-year-old falling in love so deeply, and that love eventually turning into a passion that even affected the career that he would go on to choose. Only the inexcusable, exhausting, elegant, eloquent, rude, no-place-to-hide, uncompromising, indefensible and truly loveable Comrades Marathon could do something so extraordinary.
Thank you, Comrades. Grateful thanks. I’ ve always been in it for the long run.
About the Authors
INSPIRATION
Hanging proudly in the Geerdts family home are Arnie’ s 11 Comrades medals
Arnold Geerdts is the proud owner of Green Number 1120. A 2:29 marathoner, silver Comrades medallist, awardwinning journalist, broadcaster, speaker, corporate coach, devoted husband and father who is still( and will always be) in love with the Comrades Marathon.
A PROMISE THAT WAS FIRST MADE IN 1851
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