Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 154 November 2022 | Page 38

ROAD RUNNING

stadium – you had to go through underneath – and he said , ‘ You ’ re on your own . You haven ’ t got much time ’.”

Almost Last , But Not Least

To his regret , Kirkness never found out who the mystery tennis player was , but now in the stadium , he managed to get one foot in front of the other to cover the final metres towards the finish line . “ About 200m from the end I thought I had run out of time , so I set off on what I thought was a sprint – it was probably no quicker than a fast walk , but I got in in 10:55:07 . I was second-last , and collapsed at the end , because I was certainly out , but it was an experience !”

The badly dehydrated Kirkness doesn ’ t remember too much of what happened after that , just that his brother managed to get him back in the car and home to Dundee , where he had to go to work the next day – as a school teacher , he could not cut class . “ The inexperience showed itself , because we didn ’ t know that you chafe under the arms , so I bled under both arms and lost all 10 toenails ,” he recalled years later .

Coaching Sidenote

Comrades coach Parry says not drinking fluids was quite common practice in that era . “ Through the 40s and 50s , many athletes would not take in anything for as long as possible , and saw it as weakness when athletes finally took in anything ,” he said . “ The brain and associated nervous system is amazing , so initially you would be able to trick the brain , because wetting your lips and mouth would lead it to believe that fluids and or energy was on the way , and allow you to push a bit longer before breakdown . However , at some point you would probably quite literally run on zero .”

“ I would look at taking in around 200 to 300ml per hour , with most of that coming from energy drinks such as Energade , Coke , Powerade or similar . Importantly though , I always advocate adjusting this to thirst . Drink more if you are thirsty , and a bit less if you find you are not thirsty as you approach water points . There are also a few golden rules of ultra-running , and top of the list is nothing new on race day , so you should drink what you have used in preparation races and training ,” advises Parry .

Talking about Kirkness ’ s feat , Coach Parry reckons , “ He may have done minimal formal training , but his choice of sports meant that compared to the average person , he actually did a lot of training while playing matches and practising . He would have had an extremely good general level of preparedness and the ‘ extra ’ running would mean that he was actually reasonably well prepared , but still a long way from ideal . I would still say that they just don ’ t make us the same these days !”

Proudly taking ownership of Green Number 4228

As for the bet that started it all , he had won , having reached the finish in 10 hours and 55 minutes , and Kirkness admitted later : “ I never did get my 10 shillings , and I don ’ t know where John Potgieter is . I suppose I never pressed the issue . It took another 10 years before I ran Comrades again – but properly trained – and it was no problem . These days everybody knows about Comrades and knows you have to drink water . It wasn ’ t like that back then .”

Invaluable Experience

These are all things Kirkness picked up on in later races , of course , as after his 10- year break , he went on to run 10 more Comrades Marathons , the last of which was in 1988 . That meant he earned his Green Number , in 1983 , and also notched up an impressive best time of 8:11:33 , in the Down Run of 1971 . Asked what his advice was to prospective Comrades runners , he simply smiled and said , “ I would imagine that most of the runners running now would know a lot more about it than I do . I don ’ t think you would ever get the situation again where people didn ’ t know the ropes . It certainly saves a lot of pain and suffering , I think , but whether that ’ s good or not , I don ’ t know .”

This article was written by Roy ’ s daughter-in-law , Karien Jonckheere , and was originally published in The Natal Witness newspaper in 2015 . It is republished here with the permission of the Kirkness family and the author .