Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 60, July 2014

Time to Clean up our act In the May edition, the Editor’s Letter spoke of the need for the running community to make an effort to reduce the amount of litter left on the roads during our races, and this elicited quite a strong reaction from our readers. Here are just a few of the letters we received. COULDN’T AGREE MORE Your editorial on littering refers. I could not agree more! I am appalled at the behaviour of the majority of the running community, who besides littering, create a potentially dangerous situation for the following runners, who could easily slip and fall hard. I am amazed that I have never witnessed anybody slipping on a discarded plastic sachet. You rightly ask what it will take for our fellow runners to start showing a little more consideration for others THE OTHER SIDE Having run Comrades from 2010 to 2013, I ended up supporting in 2014 due to an injury. And what a day it was... Trust me, supporting Comrades along the route is HARD work. Between the ﬁlling of water bottles, mixing special drinks, helping with strapping, etc, you also have to take pictures, send regular updates to friends at home, conquer trafﬁc, rush to the next support point and shout your lungs out, cheer, cry, sympathise, motivate. And between all of this, make sure you don’t look away and miss your friends running this awesome race... Then sitting in the stadium for the last hour, all sunburnt, and seeing the absolute pain, passion, agony, but above all camaraderie of runners streaming in to make the ﬁnal cut-off. Running or supporting, it is still 12 hours, still 89km. To all the supporters... You are truly appreciated! – Andre van Wyk, Johannesburg Having been on the route the past three years to help the runners keep going, I can but second your sentiments: Comrades supporters play a vital role in the race! – Ed. THE LOVELY SPORT I’m a fairly new runner, but loving the sport so much. I noticed during my last race that it is such a quiet and respectful sport. The sound of hundreds of feet going through the sleepy suburbs, not even waking the residents still fast asleep, and then the runners taking the time to thank the marshals for waving their ﬂags in the wind, rain and cold to keep us safe. What a lovely sport and I am so happy now to be part of it. – Shani Coetzer, Cape Town There are also some very chatty runners out there, so you still have great conversations on the run to look forward to! – Ed. WINNERS’ CORNER and for the environment. Hopefully not the potential consequences that you spell out, like cancelled races… but who knows? Huge thanks to the hordes of volunteers who clean up after us during and after every race. – Alan Ter Morshuizen, via e-mail Congratulations to all the winners of our April edition competitions. HAV

Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 60, July 2014 | Page 7