MY COMRADES STORY BY ALLAN VILLIER #9762

“16 June 2007: An overweight, unhealthy me woke up on the couch after an early birthday party (with a particularly sore head), just in time to see Leonid Shvetsov break the record; and that’s where I stayed until 17h30 when the gun went off to signal the end of the race.

I hadn’t watched the Comrades Marathon since I was a child, when my mom would not allow anything else on the television all day.

Amongst all the excitement and worry, joy and tears, triumph and defeat that makes Comrades the unbelievable experience that it is, was a double amputee from England, named Richard Whitehead, who without legs came to run Comrades.

The presenter made such a simple statement after she interviewed him, “If someone with no legs can do this race, you have no excuse!”. It was more than a decade later that I would stand on the start line, but that’s where the seed was planted.

Fast forward 9 years to April 2016; I had just made it to the top of a single flight of stairs and had to sit down to catch my breath. That was my breaking point. I knew in that instant that if I didn’t do something drastic, I wouldn’t see my 40th birthday.

So I stopped smoking, gave up junk food and forced myself to only use the stairs at my flat. Baby steps, but pretty soon I had started feeling more alive.

I needed a challenge; it was June in Durban. ‘Comrades fever’ was palpable and a memory started creeping into my head… “If someone with no legs can do this race, you have no excuse!”

It’s funny the reactions you get when you’re 128kg, have never run in your life and tell people, “Next year I’m running Comrades”. Most of them just laugh at you, except for those who have done it.

Maybe it’s because they truly know that humans are capable of so much more than we think, and that you truly can do anything you set your mind to, no matter what obstacles life throws at you.

Either way, with my mind firmly made up, I embarked on the hardest journey of my life, and a long journey it would be.

In 2017 I didn’t even make the start line. 2018 I didn’t make the finish line. But on the 9th of June 2019, considerably fitter and 40kg lighter, I finally achieved what I had set out to do. I crossed the finish line, a different person from who had started that morning, because I now also know just how resilient and capable the human spirit is.”

The winner of this month’s Mr Price Sport voucher is Allan Villiers.