32631

It took a while, but I have finally received confirmation that my entry for Comrades has been processed.  Of course I am yet to qualify for the race which means I have to run a standard marathon in under 5 hours.  Luckily this is not particularly difficult, provided the correct amount of training gets done.  The hard part is doing the best possible qualifying time so as to secure a place in a good seeding pen come race day.  For an average novice runner like me, the best I can hope for is a sub 4 hour marathon which should get me into the D pen (I think).  To date, my best marathon time is 4:08 (yes, I know I've only run two) and at this point, taking another nine minutes off that seems almost impossible.  But that's the plan.  If I don't manage to do that, then I'll be stuck in the E seeding pen which will put me pretty far back in the field, meaning I'll lose quite a lot of time at the start. And when you have absolutely no idea what to expect or how bad the pain is going to be after about 70+ km, you need all the time you can get...just in case things go pear shaped! There are still 239 days left before Comrades however, which means there will be plenty of time to worry about these things later.  For now, my entry is in, my number is 32631 and there are 9202 other crazy people who have also entered this thing.  Good to know I'm not alone!