Not quite

Many bad things had happened in South Africa since liberation – the corruption of politicians, the corruption of dreams – but for Sibusiso Mlengetya, standing in the dark of morning in Durban with 17,000 other aspirants, voices lifted in the national anthem:

. . . Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom
In South Africa our land!

all could be forgiven.

It was the oldest and largest ultra-marathon in the world, the Comrades Marathon – 87 kilometres from Durban to Pietermaritzburg up the Valley of a Thousand Hills. As Alan Paton wrote, ‘There is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo to the hills. These hills are grass covered and rolling and they are lovely beyond any singing of it’.

But ultra-running is not just about the beauty of the route, it is about aching hips and aching knees and tired muscles and the onset of nausea.

It was over half way through the race that Sibusiso found himself kneeling on the side of the road retching into the long grass as the inexorable tide of competitors flowed relentless by him. His hopes of a sub-ten-hour finish flowed away as well. Sibusiso knew the Comrades Marathon tradition – that the race director stands on the finish line and fires a gun at precisely 12 hours from the start time and all the competitors who have not crossed the line are stopped from doing so, are doomed to receive no recognition, to be relegated to that limbo summed up by those three dreadful letters which all runners fear – DNF, ‘did not finish’.

A kind man gave Sibusiso a piece of ice to suck, which did settle his nausea quite significantly. He carried on.

At the top of the infamous hill called Polly Shortts he sat down in the gutter, exhausted and sick but determined still.

Up the last hill. Three kilometres to go. Two kilometres to go.

Closer. Closer.

The crowd on the side of the road thickened and it roared.

Across the grass towards the finish. Into the finish chute – the crowd roared, they banged on the sheet metal of the barriers holding them back. Loud, amplified music competed with the baying of the crowd; floodlights gave a hallucinogenic cast to everything; a frenzy of excitement. The announcer yelled over the speaker system and the crowd with him – 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .  7 . . .  6 . . . 

An insane kaleidoscope of colour and sound whirled around Sibusiso, he seemed to stagger down a dizzying tunnel, everything focussed only on that point ahead, that point that he had to reach.

The finish line in sight – the still point that drew him on.

. . . 5 . . . 4 . . .  3 . . .  2 . . . 1.

And the Lord said to John, ‘Come forth and win eternal life.’

But John came fifth and won a toaster.

Dhiraja