Comrades Supplement Comrades Training and Info Guide, January 2016 | Page 6

INSPIRATION

The Comrades Marathon has come a long way from its humble beginnings in 1921, but the race’s spirit
and camaraderie remain the same as we prepare for the 91st running of the Ultimate Human Race.
– BY SEAN FALCONER

T

he Great War of 1914 to 1918 was the worst conflict the world
had ever experienced. It started with an isolated political
assassination of an Austrian Archduke in Serbia and within a
month most of Europe was at war, which in turn dragged other
countries into the conflict, including South Africa as part of the British
Commonwealth. The battlefields spread to other parts of the world,
including the old South West Africa right on our own border, but the
lasting image of that war was of muddy trenches in France, and the shellriddled, devastated No Man’s Land in between, with troops from all over
the world living in miserable conditions and dying in their millions in a
hail of machine gun bullets and artillery shells as the generals on either
side tried and failed to find a way to make a decisive push for victory.
Many South African troops were part of the war, and many of those who
miraculously survived and returned to this country struggled to adapt
back to the life they had known before the war. Life in the trenches left
its indelible mark on them, and they could not forget the horror of their
ordeal, or the friends and comrades they had lost. That led to some
looking for ways to commemorate their fallen comrades, and hold on to
the camaraderie that had helped them to survive the war, like former
soldier Vic Clapham of Pietermaritzburg.
He came up with the idea of a running race between Maritzburg
and Durban, under the auspices of the Comrades of the Great War
association, and on 24 May 1921, a small group of runners lined up in
front of the Pietermaritzburg City Hall in the early morning hours, set to
run some 90 kilometres to commemorate fallen comrades. Not all were
veterans of the war, but all knew they were running for the veterans, and
for those no longer able to run.
For many of those 36 runners, it would be a first time running such a
prodigious distance, and when the race officially ended 12 hours later,
just 16 had reached the finish, with Bill Rowan claiming the win. For most

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Comrades Training & Information Guide 2016

it was a humbling experience – not just physically, but also due to the
emotion of the race, and the intense camaraderie that it evoked. Even
the athletes who didn’t finish were caught up in the moment, as were
many spectators, many of whom followed the race closely on whatever
vehicle they could find and thronged the finish line to welcome the
finishers in. And from those humble beginnings was born the world’s
greatest ultra-marathon.

Journey of Discovery

Today the Comrades Marathon attracts 20,000 entries – it would have
still more if not for a maximum cap being set so as to make the race
manageable on the roads between Maritzburg and Durban – and it
is known all around the world as ѡ