It’s 100% my wife’s fault! (How I fell for the ‘One in your Green Number’ scam)

I am a well-trained husband. It’s taken the better part of 20 years but I am now mostly domesticated and largely housebroken.

My wife Kathy ran the 2007 Down run. I seconded her that year. It was hard work and a stressful job. She got out of running the 2008 Up run (just before doing her long run I should add) by falling pregnant. Kathy ran several more marathons and Two Oceans ultras but never felt the urge to return to Comrades.

After getting a chronic illness Kathy thought she thought she would never run another marathon. But Kathy has a type A personality and slowly beat the illness into remission. She started running again in 2025 and did her first half marathon in 12 years last year at Wally Hayward.

Like I said, I am a well-trained husband. I’ve had plenty of coaching and direction on appropriate behaviour over the years. I knew better than to ask if (or when) she’d be entering a marathon. All marathon running discussion in our household revolved completely around myself.

However, my husbandly discretion and tact would come back to bite me. I was about to get a nasty surprise.

Mondays are always the worst day of the week. The first Monday in November was about to drop a bombshell.

I was walking towards my car when Kathy popped out of her office with a particularly concerned (and slightly guilty) look on her face. With an earnest look on her face she said, “Stu, I’ve got something serious to tell you.”

I thought, “Oh #$%^, don’t tell me you’re pregnant!” I really don’t want to be a father to a teenager in my 60s.

Instead Kathy revealed, “I’ve just entered Comrades.”

In retrospect, I am not sure which was the worse scenario.

That got an actual, “What the #$%^?” exclamation. I think I probably followed that up with a more reticent, “Wow. OK. Good for you.” Then I got in my car and drove to work.

Now I should point out that I was ten and done with Comrades. Before running my tenth in 2019, I told everyone that would be my last Comrades. I am a man of my word. I enjoyed every minute of my Green Number run and savoured my final Comrades experience.

Actually that’s a lie, no one enjoys every minute of running Comrades. I despise Inchanga. That part of the route gets me every year. I always tried to mentally prepare for the post Drummond slump but Inchanga got through my defences every time.

There are lots of hills with no name along the Comrades route. Somewhere just before Polly Shortts there is a particularly nasty ‘no name brand’ hill. It is a hill so nasty that many naïve novices think (and hope) that this is Little Pollies. It is not even miniscule Pollies, it is just one more speedbump on the way to Scottsville.

Everyone enjoys starting Comrades, crossing the finish line at Comrades is an indescribable feeling of exhilaration and the months’ long afterglow makes us forget the pain. I am not a naïve novice. I came prepared in 2019. Our brains are weak and forgetful but I thought I’d cleverly counteract this human fallibility. Along that heinous hill with no name I took out my phone and filmed myself. This was a message for future Stuart.

I told future Stuart, “You are going to forget how terrible you are feeling right now. You are going to want to enter Comrades again. People are going to tell you that you need to run at least ‘one in your Green Number.’ Do not listen to those people. Future Stuart, I implore you – remember this message from 2019 Stuart!”

Unfortunately that video clip is hidden away on a hard drive full of running photos. I needed immediate access to that cautionary video clip on that first Monday of November. That was my mistake and I’ll own it.

As for the people who tell you that “You have to run one in your Green Number”, my response has always been, “That rule only applies to fools and locals. I am not a KZN local so it remains to be seen whether I am a fool.” The astute reader will know where this article is heading and that I am about to remove all doubt and prove myself a fool.

Yes, I am about to reveal that I too have fallen for the ‘one in your Green Number’ scam. But there are some mitigating circumstances…

On the drive to the office on that fateful Monday morning, I wrestled with my intellect. I engaged in a deep philosophical battle. A trade-off between ideology and practicality had to be made. By the time I pulled into the office in Sandton, I had rationalised that supporting at Comrades is far harder than actually running Comrades. I therefore settled on the infallible position that entering Comrades was the sensible thing to do.

And so on that Monday morning in November, instead of checking my emails, the first thing I did when I arrived at my desk and opened my laptop, was to pull out my credit card and part with R1200 to enter Comrades. All because I didn’t want to traipse around with a togbag between Durban and Pietermaritzburg on 14 June and deal with 12 hours of fomo. I’ll freely admit to being lazy and weak. I took the easy option and entered Comrades.

Right now I am excited. I am looking forward to the 14^th of June. #50252 is eagerly anticipating its first outing in Green. There is no better start line experience in world running. Finishing Comrades is fantastic – there is no greater ultra marathon on the planet. But I know that somewhere between Inchanga and Polly Shortts, I will be thinking back to that Monday morning in November and wondering whether being a father to a teenager in my 60s was really the worse option.

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