Tales from the Two Oceans

[Sweder]

Well, sod you, Demons. Sorry Tom: I didn’t come all this way to ride the sodding bus.
Least of all through one of the nicest sections of the race. I just need something to get me going again, something to take this pain away and reset my iron will.

And blow me down, there it is; just ahead on the hard shoulder, set back amongst the ferns and shrubs; a physio station! Two banks of what appear to be large vaulting horses against which a rag-tag collection of human flotsam rest their fragile bones. A team of angels – OK, they might be physiotherapists – work vigorously to restore life to dead limbs; massaging muscles, beating bones and blood, chirping encouragement to rouse the spirits. I stagger off the road and crash into a barrier.

'Hi there- er . . . Ashley?' (My name, as with all runners, is printed below my number).
'How can I help you?'
I could weep. Instead, I smile and remove my foul baseball cap.
'Right calf's gone. Been stiff for a while.'’
Up to this point I’ve not looked down at the offending limb. I’d rather disassociate myself with the traitorous appendage, but I suppose I'd best have a look. According to the levels of pain I've been through I should see some horrible, Cronenbergian prolapsed muscle weeping from a ragged, bloodied hole . . . but it all looks rather normal, if a tad swollen. The fellow goes down on his haunches and takes my calf in two hands.
'You may feel this . . .’'
Gaaaawdblimeyyousorrysonofabitchnastyorriblelittleman . . .
'Mmm, yep, 'bout there ... ooh, yes, yes'
'Yes, I can feel something there –- hold on.'
Iron fingers peel battered flesh from bruised bone, rhythmically grinding knotted muscle to allow the blood to flow again.
'Wow! Aha, yep, definitely there . . .’'
He carries on, telling me I'm doing great and to keep going.
'Reckon I can get home on this peg then?'
He looks mortally offended at this slight on his healing powers.
'Take it easy fella, walk a little, run a little, you'll be just fine.'
It's all I need, a restoration of belief. No matter what happens I'm getting to that line and I'm bloody well getting that bloody bleeding crap-arse medal and no I don't give a monkeys what sodding colour it is.
'Thanks mate, you guys are real stars.'
A cheery wave and I'm hobbling again, this time with purpose.

The next six kilometres, all down hill, are a cacophony of violence and agony but I’m simply not in the mood. Runners stop around me as I shuffle down Rhodes, past Honenort, Southern Cross Drive, Duntaw Close and finally the gardeners’ paradise, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. Those wags at Old Mutual have been at it again;
'No, You Haven't Got Time To Stop And Smell The Roses. Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon.'
Fuck off.

I take on gallons of water (mostly to wear) and only realise that my cap is gone when I aim to salute the cheering bystanders. It's probably crawled off into the bushes at the physio station to start a fungus farm. I don't miss it. Rhodes Drive is nothing if not sheltered, the street dappled with leafy shadow. More casualties appear along the roadside, some destined never to finish, others to come in agonisingly close but just too late to medal. My series of walk-breaks gets me into a bizarre game of tag with one or two runners. Helene, an international youngster (international runners carry orange tags, locals yellow and local veterans of ten races or more blue permanent’numbers) overtakes me and vice versa for several kilometres. We grin and wave at each passing, content that the mere act of catching, losing ground and catching again is taking us closer to home. It's a timeless meander through some eminently pleasant real estate, nothing more than a slightly unbalanced Sunday stroll with the occasional watery gift thrown in. I cackle loudly (and look hurridly over my shoulder for men in white coats) as, with barely four kilometres left we come upon a shower station! Yes, just like in my first FLM there's a sort of timber frame-come-tent arrangement set up with sprinklers. It's a bit like dousing a swimmer as I splosh through but I take it anyway - at least it's fresh and cool, although the heat strangely stopped being a factor some time ago. I don't bother with gels - I still feel like throwing up and decide I can run on empty from here on in.

Just after 54K the notion that I’m going to make it starts to dawn on me.
There are no clocks on the course but I’ve enough grey matter left to know I’m inside the seven hour cut-off. Oddly this realisation elecits nothing more than a spluttered guffaw, yet I sense a subtle change in my bearing - I might have to look alive for the cameras! Just as I’m mentally patting myself on the back and writing my thanks to the Academy we reach an intersection and the course makes a sharp left turn and up an almighty bloody hill. Of course the killer, the final kick to the balls that Mr Weekly Marathon warned me of yesterday. Well, you know what? I’m going to run up the bastard. And I do, working feverishly at an invisible Nordic Trac, arms pulling, legs sliding forward, head almost on my grisly sodden chest. I reach the top with less than nothing left, gasping for air, and immediately deride myself for an act of madness. Helene slides past as I curse myself, spured back into my grotesque shuffling action. I catch her as the road dips and bends to the right. A young boy cavorts, turning cartwheels beside a sign that reads 55K. I could go for a cartwheel myself, except I’d need someone to extricate my limbs from one another afterwards. One last mini-ascent past the turn-off to the Old Zoo. I can hear a hubbub brewing, a roar that sounds at first like a distant ocean and builds and builds until it sounds like the Coliseum itself. My heart lifts in my chest as the runners ahead veer off the road, through a gate and onto . . . grass! The lush lawns of University of Cape Town rugby fields, the Groote Schuur Estate –and the finishing straight.

From somewhere deep inside I pull a tiny glowing ball of energy and release it, through my heart and lungs, through my veins into my legs, and I run. I lose around a ton in weight, feeling light as air; is this the bends? Euphoria floods me, everything is beaming bright colours; the entrance arch to the final furlong, the screming, yelling, waving hoards along both sides; the vests of runners I’m streaming past, my feet flying, barely touching the ground. I’m waving – like a fool, like a loon! – both arms aloft, saluting the crowd like I've won the lot. And I have; I've won the bloomin' lot. It's the FA Cup, the Champions League, the Cricket World Cup . . . the '99 Treble, all rolled into one. I don’t see my bouncing screaming family who’ve spent the last fifteen minutes (since Rog and Chris came home) biting their nails to the quick. I see only the finish, the cameras, the chip mats, and the clock . . . the clock that says 6:30:23, 24, 25 . . .

I cross the line. Be-beeep! My arms sink to my sides and I stagger to a halt.
Someone hands me a ribbon with some metal dangling at one end but I can't see it.
My eyes are filled with salt, with sweat, with tears.
It's over. Finished. Done. And I feel . . .

. . . nothing. There's nothing left; I've spent the lot on that mad, helter-skelter last 200 metres. Every ounce of humanity has left me; I'm a husk, a dripping, panting, bent-double shell of a man.

And I've just finished the most incredible run of my life.