His body told him it was tired but the messages on Shaun Meiklejohn’s arms helped him to victory in the Comrades Marathon
ROAD RUNNING: Julian Drew
A CURSORY glance at many photographs of Shaun Meiklejohn could present the newly crowned Comrades Marathon champion as a trendsetter in the sphere of body adornment. As was the case last Saturday, most pictures of Meiklejohn are taken on Comrades Marathon day. It is on such days that his wrists and the insides of his forearms are transformed into message boards.
In previous years he has inscribed the times he must aim for at certain stages of the race. Last Saturday he simply wrote two words, one on each wrist. “I had the word ‘relax’ on the one side and on the other was written ‘control’ “, says Meiklejohn. “Control meant self- control, to stay in control, run my own race and if necessary dictate how the race is run. It meant not being influenced too much by what is going on around me.”
The wrist messages serve as memory joggers when the going gets tough for, as Meiklejohn says, “A lot can go wrong in such a long race and it’s very easy to start hitting the panic buttons, lose focus and do silly things.”
With only 16km remaining of the tortuous 90.7km course and the race down to just himself and Charl Mattheus, Meiklejohn needed to muster every last ounce of his self control when Mattheus surged clear and made a decisive break for home on Cowies Hill. “The silly thing to do would have been to chase Charl. I told myself ‘don’t panic!’. I stayed focused and didn’t allow any negative thoughts to creep into my head. It was positive thinking that kept me going. The crowd support too, I just fed off that. I never really slowed down. I kept maintaining the pace and I even picked it up over the last few kilometres and that paid off,” said Meiklejohn.
His victory was not only the first for a Natal athlete in 16 years but the first for a South African since foreigners started competing in Comrades again in 1993. It came in his thirteenth attempt at Comrades after a series of near misses in his last three races. Meiklejohn’s win came as a surprise to many although his form had been there for all to see.
Such was the strength of the foreign opposition this year, however, that South African pre- race favourite Nick Bester had predicted that maybe there would not be a single South African in the top 10 and many experts thought a foreigner would win yet again.
The top foreign athletes are full time professionals and after a successful 1994 Meiklejohn decided to join their ranks. Last year he came within a whisker of winning the world 100km title in his first attempt at the distance and then won the London to Brighton ultra- marathon despite having flu two weeks before the race.
“Going full time improved my performance by nine minutes but in terms of my preparation it made the world of difference. No matter what job you’ve got you’ve always got different pressures on you and now I could concentrate entirely on running. A big factor when you’ve got this time is that you can be more flexible with your training and, equally important, you can plan your resting and recovery a lot better,” said Meiklejohn.
As the manager of a running shoe store in Pietermaritzburg who was on his feet eight hours a day, training after work was difficult and his recovery time restricted. Being a professional athlete and concentrating on ultra-marathons it is difficult to make money but with Comrades having such a high profile in South Africa it is easier to find sponsorships here than it would be in other countries. “I certainly can’t make a living out of prize money because R45 000 (first prize at Comrades) won’t go a long way. If you’ve got good management who can make enough on the side from endorsements then its possible to survive,” said Meiklejohn.
The prize money at Comrades this year was the biggest so far for an ultra-race but next year the Comrades Marathon Association is looking at a total purse of $1-million and considerably higher prize money. That may force other ultra-race organisers around the globe to follow suite. The promoter of the Vat Dam Run in New Zealand, who was at Comrades to promote his race, said: “I think the prize money at Comrades will have a snowball effect because other races will start to compete and then everybody will try and outdo one another.”
Meiklejohn’s next goal is the world 100km championships in Holland. “I always had the feeling that I would be better over a slightly longer distance than Comrades and when I did my first 100km race at the world champ-
ionships in Japan last year I was very happy with my performance. I think the shorter a race is then the more the faster runners come into play, but in the longer races it’s the guys with more stamina, strength, durability and mental toughness who do well,” said Meiklejohn.
Perhaps because of his number of near misses in Comrades, Meiklejohn was criticised from some quarters for lacking the mental edge to win the big races, but his wins in London to Brighton and now Comrades should put those stories to rest.
Unlike most of the foreign athletes like the top Russian Konstantin Santalov, Meiklejohn does not intend racing too many ultra-races. “I will try and plan two races each year of the same type of effort I put into Comrades.”
Meiklejohn has 93 days to recover between Comrades and the world 100km championships. Last year he was leading the world championships with just 5km remaining but problems in getting the right drinks saw him fall back to fourth although with a superb debut time of 6:26:58 which put him tenth on the world all time list.
“I should be recovered and I want to prove myself over the distance again. I’ve got over three months so I won’t rush things. I feel I have a bit of muscle damage and I’ve got a few toenails missing but I’ll only know how I am when I go for my first run in about two weeks time.
“After the world championships I will start to focus on Comrades again which will obviously be number one on my list of priorities in terms of racing next year,” says Meiklejohn.