Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 131, June 2020 June 2020 | Page 19

Jayde Brammer
Everything is preparation for that one big day. A
marathon is just another run, the Two Oceans ultra
becomes just a slightly longer training run. Your headspace
changes, and as I would run along Sunnycove,
I’d find myself looking across the bay and up the
coast, knowing soon, very soon, we would be heading
that way.
By the end of the evening, it sounded like a really
great idea. I’m not sure if it was due to Jayde’s
excitement, or just the idea of us taking on a
ridiculous challenge that I liked, but we decided not
to think about it too long lest we get discouraged,
and so we booked for it that very evening. It would be
the 90th Comrades, we had nine months to go, 90km
to run, and we were in! My Mom is an avid runner,
and she seemed to think we could do it. She was
genuinely excited for us. My Dad thought we were
crazy. I didn’t know what to think, as I honestly didn’t
know whether it was possible or just plain stupid.
Either way we were going to find out.
TIME TO GET SERIOUS
Now if I commit to something, I need to go for it
100%, and so following the next morning’s Camel
Run event, a whopping 16km, I immediately looked
online for the next marathon that I could qualify
in, which happened to be the Sanlam Cape Town
Marathon. I got a last-minute entry that same day, and
two weeks later found myself lining up with chronic
nerve-induced stomach cramps for my first marathon.
I somehow finished, and actually qualified with a 4:51,
but in doing so hurt my knee so badly I couldn’t run
for over a month. Not a great start to this Comrades
adventure, but I didn’t care, because I was now
officially qualified.
We then went down one Wednesday evening and
joined Fish Hoek Athletics Club, where Jayde’s Dad,
Stephen, was once a member, and where Adrian
happily told us on our first meeting that we had come
to the right place, because this was a comrades
club... And what an awesome club it turned out to be!
From being cheered through Fish Hoek as hometown
heroes during Two Oceans, to knowing everyone back
home is sitting there tracking you whilst running the
Comrades, I couldn’t think of a better club to be part
of. We aren’t overly involved, but the club caters for
all, which is great. I don’t think it is the top achiever in
terms of overall athletic prowess, but it has so much
heart and character and (to me, at least) that counts
for so much more.
Thereafter started an amazing journey, and the
following months will live with me forever. Jayde,
Devon, Luke and I, along with a few others here and
there, started doing ‘chommie’ runs, early morning
runs before work, running after work, exercises and
stretches, and we sacrificed glorious beach days to
pound away relentlessly at the tar roads. Worst of all,
we started ‘eating right,’ and obviously confused a lot
of people with this new way of life, I guess. I had often
just assumed fitness was something that you had as
a result of being generally healthy and reasonably in
shape… until you start training properly and realise
that you actually aren’t. You really have to work at it,
and we did.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
That’s the thing… I still speak as an amateur in terms
of experience, but Comrades is more than just the
day, it actually starts when you first start training for it.
All of a sudden, every other run becomes secondary
and the only thing that counts is Comrades.
When work took me to different parts of the country,
my training didn’t stop, and I would find myself on
the lonely roads of De Aar with no-one around but
confused sheep, or somewhere between Laingsburg
and Ladismith, plodding along and hoping that
Dawie Geelbeck, whose farm I had apparently just
run past, wouldn’t take offense. I would take comfort
from the fact that Luke, who was often also away,
would be doing the same, running loops around hotel
complexes and doing everything possible to keep up
with the mileage needed. My friends, the tambourine
man, Dinilesizwe and JJ, would bend my ear for hours
back in the office, asking what my weekly mileage
was, or am I using supplements, and we would speak
for ages, boring everyone else around us as only
runners can.
As I think of it, the greatest blessing was being able to
go on this journey with three of my best friends, Luke,
Devon and Jayde (along with all the others supporting
along the way, without whom it wouldn’t be possible),
as we prepared our bodies and minds for the same
goal, each with our very own struggles and unique
stories.
Inseparable friends Luke, Sean, Jayde and Devon
19