Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 131, June 2020 June 2020 | Page 18

ROAD RUNNING
Comrades with
best friends
With the 2020 Comrades unfortunately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this June felt very strange for the SA
running community, so we decided to look for a great Comrades story to publish in this edition, one that epitomises the
camaraderie of the Ultimate Human Race, to remind us what makes this race so great, and give us something to look forward
to in 2021, when the race will hopefully be back on the calendar. This piece written by Sean Altern after the 2017 race was
sent to us by his brother Luke Altern, telling all about the Comrades journey they undertook with friends Jayde Brammer
and Devon Hansen. Friendship and brotherly love, that’s what this story is all about…
I
knew three things about the Comrades Marathon.
Firstly, I had no desire to ever run anything more than
21km. This I told myself as I drove over Ou Kaapse
Weg one September morning back in 2014. Secondly,
I remember watching the Comrades earlier that year,
with the stragglers of the Down Run coming in, and at
that time clearly remember thinking that these people
were lunatics. From the comfort of my couch, I couldn’t
fathom the mindset of those crazies I was watching
Luke, Devon and Sean at the 2012
Milkwood Half Marathon with
friend Bertus (far left)
stumble in, overheating and exhausted. To put it into
perspective, I did run at the time, but was at a stage
where I was pre-hydrating on Energade for days before,
and taking footbaths to recover after doing a 10km…
The third thing I knew was that it was my Grandpa’s
favourite day of the year. This was something to do
with him coming from Maritzburg and Durban, and
having watched from the side of the road around Lion
Park since he was a boy. He just loved seeing the
route and all the places, and later in his life, thanks to
the TV coverage, he would sit and watch it non-stop,
start to finish, year after year. Even though no-one
in our family had ever attempted the run, it was very
special to him.
HERE’S AN IDEA…
It’s funny how often in life, as soon as you start
thinking or speaking about something, it has the
tendency to become a reality. I think our friend Jayde
first mentioned the idea to us during one of our beach
jogs. He had done Comrades years before with his
Dad, and his stories of the race were terrifying, so
none of us took the suggestion seriously. We knew he
would be game, but for the rest of us it was laughable,
and we dismissed it immediately. It was just Jayde
being Jayde. Yet it persisted like a mosquito in my
mind. “Can you imagine it?” I thought as I daydreamt
about the finish.
A few nights later we were at Jayde’s house for a
braai, and as it turned out, this braai had an agenda. A
black finisher’s shirt with the gold Comrades emblem
hung over a carefully positioned chair, along with a
mounted medal and backing photograph in a wooden
frame. Race shirts and medals were of course the
primary motivator for most races we were willing to
spend money on, and Jayde knew this well. Beer was
also a part of the plan, and was generously dealt out
along with promises of all sorts of fanfare and glory.
Images: Jetline Action Photo, Paige Altern & courtesy Devon Hansen, Jayde Brammer & Luke Altern
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ISSUE 131 JUNE 2020 / www.modernathlete.co.za