Road Runners brave the grueling Comrades

Rudi Bowe

Five marathon athletes from the Walvis Bay Road Runners competed in the gruelling 86.83km Comrades Ultra-marathon from Durban to Pietermaritzburg, the oldest ultra-marathon in the world, on Sunday 9 June.

This is the world-famous marathon route associated with names like Bruce Fordyce and Deon Holtzhausen.
The harbour town athletes were part of around 20 000 runners that lined up for the start in Durban.
The direction of the race alternates each year be-tween the “up” run starting from Durban and the “down” run starting from Pietermaritzburg. The cut-off time for successfully completing the race is 12 hours.
One member, Werner Bachmann ran in a green number, as he already completed 12 Comrades marathons in the past, whilst Eliza Steyl ran her 9th race, Etienne Louw his 5th and Izabè Muller her 2nd.
Michelle von Stein was the novice as she was doing her first race in honour of her dad, the late André Bester who in his completed 23 Comrades marathons.
The Walvis Bay’ites recorded the following times:
Eliza Steyl 8:51 (Bill Rowan medal)
Izabe Muller 11:29 (Back-to-back medal)
Michelle von Stein 11:36
Etienne Louw 11:55
Werner Bachmann had to withdraw from the race at 43 km (5:28) due to a stomach bug and Kobus van Schalkwyk had to withdraw before the race due to a knee injury.