Slow runners @ Comrades

In support of all the slow runners in this world  !

People ask me all the time, "why do you run so slow ?"

It is a valid question.

After all, I've finished 5 comrades marathons and I've taken 11 hours and 50 + + minutes to finish each one of them  

What is often not appreciated is that going slow takes a special skill set.  It's not easy to go slow and yet finish on time.  To use every possible minute of the available time is quite an art.

To gain a better understand of this, One needs a special perspective on this "going slow" business

One needs A paradigm shift.

For real understanding to take place, One needs to think of running as love making.

Now, Love making takes skill.  Passion takes skill .
But Both love making and Passion require patience.
Loving well, requires time.

When one makes love, one needs to pace oneself.

What is the point of rushing?  Why should you be in a hurry to finish ?

It's the most absurd thing to rush through love making.

One needs to enjoy and relish every moment of the experience.

One needs to be slooooowwww.

One needs to make it last as long as possible. It is a skill which one needs to acquire and it is a skill which is hard to execute, Because One needs to take all the time in the world but yet come to the finish in the nick of time. That's a unique skill !!

One Starts with just the looking, then the touching and then the feeling !

One should spend an eternity simply kissing the curves and the hills and the valleys.   Exploring the curves and the valleys and the hills takes time and patience.  One needs to explore them with loving care.  Not a single inch of the landscape should be missed or ignored.

Beauty is something to be enjoyed for as long as possible and forever.

That is the philosophy One can and should apply to running.

Who wants to run Comrades  fast ?

Make it last for 11:56:37  !!
Now, that takes some skill and a whole lot of passion and a huge amount of strength  !!

Of course, spending all that time on the Comrades route leaves neither the time nor the energy for that other thing !

But that can be overcome.

All One needs, is a "tiny" sense of humour.

New year resolutions.

New Year Resolutions. 

It was one of the coldest of nights that I can remember trying to sleep through.  

Aryan , Neepa , Namrata and I shivered through sub zero temperatures in a cold tent,  a few meters away from the Pangong lake, in the Himalayas. 

I spent a restless & sleepless night waiting for the dawn to break.  

Barry Holland has written that a Comrades runner measures his year as per the Comrades Calendar.   My year starts and ends with the Comrades marathon.  

My year had ended on the finish line of Comrades on the 31st of May 2016 and now I was on the cusp to the start of a new year.  

The time before the first run after Comrades 2016 is much like 11:59 pm on the night of 31 December.  It is a moment when one makes ones New year resolutions.  One ponders upon the year gone by but more importantly one decides upon all the things one wants to do in the years to come ahead.  One plans and dreams. ( unless one is already drunk ) 

The year to follow is especially special for me as  I enter the 50th year of my life.  It's a special landmark since I know that more years have gone and less remain.   Time is fleeting and fast. 

I struggled in bed, cold and shivering waiting for light to break.  I was desperate to step out. It had been 10 days since I had run Comrades and I could no longer hold back the urge to step out for an easy run. 

Finally as light broke, I stepped out of the tent, dressed in layers. 5 t-shirts, 2 full-length pants, 2 pairs of socks,  shoes, a woollen cap and a pair of gloves.  The camp site was desolate. No one in their right mind had yet woken up.   But the magnificent sight which greeted me was one which will stay embedded in my memory forever.   

A very faint glow of light bathed the top of the mountains in the very far distance .  The water of the Pangong lake was alive.  It was living and breathing.  

I quickly traversed the short few meters between our tent and the lake shore.   It was drizzling and the air was cold and freezing. I could see my breath as I exhaled and could feel the the cold crisp air as it entered my lungs. 

To my right stood majestic mountains.  The top of some were covered with snow while some were barren and shades of browns, greys, oranges and greens .  

There was some green grass at the waters edge but everything else was completely barren and covered with rocks. There wasn't a blade of grass visible on those mountains.   

The lake ahead of me, extended to the horizon and to territory controlled by the Chinese.  The water was shades of blues, greys, greens and turquoise.   It was the cleanest water in a lake I've ever seen.  

Wave after wave of crystal clear water dashed against the pebbles which lined the lakes edge. 

On the far left bank of the lake , the mountains were again clad in fog and mist.  The browns, greys, blues, oranges and white effortlessness blended into one another. 

The rarefied air at this high altitude made breathing quite an effort but I just wanted to run.   I knew that breath would follow breath. I just wanted to run. 

And so I ran ! 

I also knew I had to follow Neepas strict instructions to be back within an hour. 

The vast expanse of the landscape was overwhelming.  There was not a soul in sight. It was perhaps how our earth was before we showed up.   

The vastness of the lake, the mountains and the sky made me feel the infinitely smallness and brevity of my life.  

I ran some and walked some along the lakes edge.   

A half hour later I came across a large rock on the waters edge on which someone had spray painted the words "Live Pure".   Although this was an act of complete vandalism,  I could understand the vandals emotions.   It would be hard for any human to stand in these pristine surroundings and not ponder upon the meaning of one's life and its brevity.  One cannot stand in the midst of this magnificence and not ponder upon one's mortality.  One cannot but ponder upon the words "Live Pure". 

The local people of Leh and Ladhak have a tradition whereby they stack flat rocks, one on top of another.  One can see such rock sculptures all over Leh. The driver of our tempo traveller, Mr Nuwang, had explained to me that the locals held the belief that if they made such a stack of rocks in a particular location, they would be born in that area in their next life. 

I decided to make a stack of rocks on the river bank.  But I decided to make it as a mark of my love for my family.  I found and put the first large flat rock in memory of my father and then stack rocks on top of that to represent my love for my mom, for my wife Neepa, for my children, Aryan & Namrata, for my extended family and for our dog Lance. 

I stood there on the waters edge, closed my eyes and thanked the universe for the blessings I have been bestowed. 

I believe that I'm the luckiest man alive.  I've been blessed with wonderful parents, with a great education, with a fabulous family,  with great friends and a life filled with opportunities.  I've been blessed with good health. 

I stood there on the waters edge in that sacred environment and asked for some more blessings.  

I hoped that the universe will grant me the ability to use my 'free will' to make the right decisions for the remaining days of my life.  I wish to live my life in such a way that I can give back more than I have received and to live it in such a way that some day my children and family will remember me as a "good man". 

I want all children to have the things and opportunities that I want my children to have.  I want to generate enough resources for children at the Tata Hospital so that no child suffering from cancer remains without treatment. 

But while I was at it, I asked for one more  blessing... I prayed that I can be at the start line of Comrades 2017. 

The Comrades year is such a long year that one never knows how things will pan out.  Real life intervenes. One can never tell what the basket of life holds for each one of us: work and finance and health and study and all the other glorious uncertainties that unfold over the year.   One never knows if one will finally stand on that start-line but one must dream and desire.   I'm old enough to know that the sun does not always shine on each and everyone of our desires.  Sometimes dark clouds pour rain on ones dreams. 

An hour and a half later, as I walked towards my tent, I turned and took one more look at the mountains and the lake.  

The sun had not broken through the clouds but the peaks in the far distance were now bathed in sunlight.  It was still drizzling and windy. It was still brutally cold and overcast. 

But the first rays of sunlight had broken through over the mountains in the distant horizon and I could tell that the promise of light and warmth lay not in the too distant future. 

The cycle of life will always have all its seasons but one can and must always count on the sun's promise to break though in the end.  

I smiled at the thought.   

I too believe in the promise that my future holds.  I believe that I can be all the things I want to be: a good son, a good husband, a good parent, and a good human !  I can be the "good man" that I want to be.   

And as far as that one other personal desire goes,  I believe that I will come through in the days and months of training to follow. 

I believe in the promise that I will stand on the start-line of Comrades 2017.

A Day of Days : Comrades 2016

A Day of Days 

So on the 29th of May , as I lay in bed at night,  sore and in pain,  I wrote about my Comrades 2016 experience.  I wrote it and went to sleep. Later the next day I posted it on Facebook and sent it to my close friends. 

What I had written about was primarily the post comrades experience where I shivered due to cold IV drip in the medical tent 

Getting nausea, cramps, dehydration, aches and pains are all part of running Comrades. At comrades these aches and pains are taken to an extreme.   

But sometimes to someone who isn't into running this all sound pretty awful.   It seems to them, like it was a traumatic awful experience.   

A non-runner who enters the Comrades medical tent for the first time will get appalled.    He will think that some natural disaster has stuck and something terrible is going on. 

On reading my post, someone from India, asked me, "Was this your first finish and will you come back again because you had such an awful day?"

I'm not sure which part of my post led him to the conclusion that I had an awful day.   

After all, I have in the past failed to finish comrades and not thought of that as having an awful day and here I was at  the end of the day with my 5th comrades medal around my neck.  What part of that looked like awful ? 

 

It Wasn't an awful day at all.    It was just how Comrades day is.

The winner of last years comrades had cramps and was limping much like me.  She was in pain and at some point staggering on the road.  

I know she will not describe her day as awful. 

Two years ago the indomitable Russian twins crossed the finish line and collapsed on the green.  They landed up taking some IV.  I know they won't describe that day as awful. 

Comrades is hard for me and I guess it is for most people. It is hard for those who win and it is hard for those who don't. 

So it was a day just like a comrades day is supposed to be.  

And yes, for me, it was excruciatingly hard And I had to dig and dig and dig inside me to find strength to keep moving forward.  

I managed.  

I think if I can live my life, pushing ahead, one small step at a time, relentlessly, mine will be a well lived life.  

I was in the field.  I was struggling and fighting the clock. I was so completely alive to the passage of time. 

There were times when I saw the hill rise in front of me and it made my heart sink.  I wondered, "How in the world would I be able to soldier up that hill ? How much time will I lose going up that monster ?"

My legs didn't have the strength to run up those hills so I decided that I won't look in the distance. I lowered my cap and kept my eyes just 5 meters in front of me.  I looked at the legs of people in front and if they were running I ran. If they were walking, I passed them and tried to find feet which were running and followed those instead. 

Did I have an awful day ? 

No !!! On the contrary. 

What more can one ask for in life other than to be part of the worlds greatest gathering of crazy people ?

And come to think of it , one can ask, "Who is crazy and who is normal ? "

I've come to the conclusion that the more times you run Comrades, the more normal you are.  

The more times you fight your limitations in life (whatever they may be ) the more normal you are. 

I cannot imagine life without having had this experience.  

When I'm dying and if I get the time to look back at my life, I will think with great fondness upon these days. 

I will look back and know that I was privileged to be on that road and in the company of my heros and heroines.    

It makes my life, a well lived life .

It wasn't an awful day.  

It was a Day of Days  

Sometimes we don't get soup. Comrades 2016

Comrades 2016 is done.  I finished it with just a few minutes to go,  in around 11:56. 

I last mentioned that I had this desire of finishing in a good time and going into the international tent and sharing some soup with my fellow Indian runners.   

At the finish, I had two bottles of IV instead. 

After finishing the race, I took my medal and walked towards the medical tent. 

I Threw up and doubled down on the lawn and was quickly transported into the medical tent. 

I've had IV's at comrades before but the next hour and half was one of the most painful I have ever experienced. 

They did some blood work and decided that I needed an iv.   The problem with the IV fluid was that it was slightly cold. 

At that point thousands of people were coming Into the medical tent and it was a complete crazy zone.  In fact, the comrades medical tent has often been described as the largest temporary medical set up In the world outside of a war zone or active disaster area. 

The cold iv went into my blood stream and I started to shiver. 

One may have seen those machines in the gym that people use to loose weight.  One stands on a platform and there is belt put around ones waist.  Then the platform vibrates and the belt also vibrates.  For about an hour and a half as the IV went into my system my upper body shivered with that intensity.  My legs however had gone into an excruciatingly painful spasm and were completely immobile. 

I pondered at the absurdity of my position. The upper half shivering out of control, the lower half completely immobile and in terrible pain. 

They had put one aluminum blanket and 3 woollen blankets on me to stop the shivering but it was completely useless .  

The suffering ended only when both the bottles of IV were done. 

So the dream of having soup got substituted with 2 bottles of IV. 

I lay In the tent for another half hour to recover. 

But Through the 2 hour ordeal, my one hand was clinching my finishers medal.   Bruce Fordyce has often said that at the finish-line, one way to check if the runner is dead is to simply try prying out the medal from his hands....A runner who isn't died won't let go of the medal. 

That little piece of metal is precious beyond words. 

As I lay vibrating at a high frequency and in intense pain,  I thought about my run. 

I had spent the last 4 hours  of the race on the road in intense pain and stress.  Every second is vital when one finishes a 89.205 km race with less than 3 minutes to go.   

For so many years I have been trying to improve my performance on comrades race day.  Every year has been the same. 

I felt bad for the millions of things my wife had done to help me. I felt bad for calling my friend ashok from pune to cycle next to me on my long runs.  I felt bad for all the times I've left my family and gone away to run.   To what end ? To keep finishing with such a slim margin ?? To what end ?  I've changed training strategies but the end result has always been the same. 

I finish the race with just a few minutes to spare.   

Only someone who run comrades and finishes in those closing moments will understand the level of stress one undergoes.  

People around you start walking towards the end and you have to fight the instinct to join them. It is very hard. 

The math is always clear.  One needs to run the Kms at a certain pace or one will get cut off.  But the road varies violently with the ups and the downs and it is hard for one to hold a particular pace. It is hard to plan ones pace. 

I battled with time from 38 km to go.  

Later, I had 10 km to go and 7 km to run.  My calf was continuously sending me signals that it was just waiting to go into spasm and my knees and quad muscles were screaming  for relief after being abused for the better part of 12 hours. 

I think my ability as a runner is hopeless.  

Bruce Fordyce always says that to be a runner one must choose ones parents well. 

I think in my entire family family tree spanning back many many generations, there isn't a single athlete. 

I didn't choose my parents wisely for this particular passion of mine. 

So what can I do ? 

Well for one , I thank my parents for all the other blessings they bestowed on me.  The love for reading and writing comes from my Father.  Courage, I inherit from my mother.

I have so many other blessings that it is ok if I can't run fast. 

Such is life. Nobody has everything.  The yin and the yang are always in balance. 

Such is life. 

Sometimes one has to do without the soup.  One can settle for the IV.

The comrades marathon and a message from the emperor

The comrades marathon and a message from an emperor !


I sit in my office today, 18th May 2016, a mere 10 days before Comrades and listen to a Lindsay Perry / Brad Brown webinar.

It is the last webinar  before  Comrades and I hang on to every word of advice.

I know that I want to run my personal best.  I want to finish this race in a good comfortable time.

I want to go through the day without worrying if I will finish the race.  

I know I can't run out too fast at the start nor must I run out too slow.

The internet is overflowing with pacing chats.  Each one telling me what is the best half-way time for my target finish time.

Some charts get me to the half way slightly faster than the other charts.

I know that a slight mistake of going out too fast will cook my goose in the second half.

But what is that "slight error".

Which is the perfect pace ?

Who can simply look though all my data and look at my life over the last 5 months and divine the perfect plan for me ?

Who can look into the future for me and know what will happen to me on Comrades day and then come back to the present and then tell me how my day pans out and tell me what I should tweak ?

Who is going to give me the message that will lead to salvation ?

Is the messenger coming ?

Kafka wrote a story about an all powerful emperor who on his deathbed sent an all important message to a lowly wretched citizen.  

The lowly wretched citizen is aware that the emperors message is tremendously important and is meant ONLY for him.

The message is given to the emperors most trusted courier and the courier is on the way.

The story as translated by Mark Harman goes like this :

A Message from the Emperor

The emperor—it is said—sent to you, the one apart, the wretched subject, the tiny shadow that fled far, far from the imperial sun, precisely to you he sent a message from his deathbed.

The emperor bade the messenger kneel by his bed, and whispered the message in his ear. So greatly did he cherish it that he had him repeat it into his ear. With a nod of his head he confirmed the accuracy of the messenger’s words.

The messenger set out at once; a strong, an indefatigable man; thrusting forward now this arm, now the other, he cleared a path though the crowd; every time he meets resistance he points to his breast, which bears the sign of the sun; and he moves forward easily, like no other.

But the crowds are so vast; their dwellings know no bounds. If open country stretched before him, how he would fly, and indeed you might soon hear the magnificent knocking of his fists on your door.

But instead, how uselessly he toils; he is still forcing his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he overcome them; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to fight his way down the steps; and were he to succeed at this, nothing would be gained: he would have to cross the courtyard and, after the courtyard, the second enclosing outer palace, and again stairways and courtyards, and again a palace, and so on through thousands of years; and if he were to burst out at last through the outermost gate—but it can never, never happen—before him still lies the royal capital, the middle of the world, piled high in its sediment.

Nobody reaches through here, least of all with a message from one who is dead.

You, however, sit at your window and dream of the message when evening comes."


As I listen to the pod casts and look at the pacing charts, I too realise that the message isn't going to come.

No one is going to tell me what my perfect pace should be.

No messengers are going to come through !

I have to close my eyes and look within myself and find the beginnings of an answer !

It is only on race day that the final answer will evolve.

For Franz Kafka, the Comrades Marathon and a Cup of Soup

For Franz Kafka, the Comrades Marathon and a Cup of Soup !

The thing to do in these last couple of weeks before Comrades is to sit and meditate upon the Comrades day strategy.  

The thing to do would be to come up with plans A, B and C.  The 3 plans would signify the ideal, the acceptable and then the bare minimum.  

This is easier said than done.

This is easier said than done because by simply making a mistake in plan A, I could make attaining plan B and C close to impossible.

Comrades’ does not treat fools lightly.   I know.  I’ve been there.

It is possible that my plan A is just that marginally out of reach, say 1 minute too fast over the first 20km which would cause me to blow up so terribly at 70km that not only would plan A be out of reach but also compromise plan B and C.  

I like to break up Comrades route into different Compartments.  It’s like different rooms.  You enter each room through a gate, run through it and then enter another room through another gate.  

There are then, 5 rooms and 5 gates:
1)    0km to 18km (Start to Umlass)
2)    18km to 40km (Umlass to Inchanga)
3)    41km to 52km (Inchanga to Hillcrest)
4)    53km t0 70km (Hillcrest to Pinetown)
5)    71km to 89km (Pinetown to the Finish)

If I don’t enter the first gate at the right speed, I can’t make it to the second gate at the right speed.  If I don’t enter the 2nd gate at the right speed, I can’t make it to the third gate at the right speed and so on and so forth.

So if Plan A has to work, I need to start at the beginning.  I can’t decide to do my best only after reaching 71km.   And I'm not skilled enough to change gears like some people I know.
By 71km, I know that my goose is cooked.

I know that 95% of the people make the mistake of going out too fast.  I understand. By running just that 45 seconds/km too fast in the first half you blow up your race and suffer in the second half.
 I get it.  I understand the concept.

But how in the world can I know the exact speed which is ideal for me this year?  I don’t train on the Comrades route. My training is different from last years. I’ve grown wiser and more foolish because I’m a year older.

A thousand variables have changed such that I cannot with any degree of precision decide the exact extent of my ability.

I am too much of a novice to plan this with precision.

Should I enter the first gate with plan A in mind, knowing well that a badly planned plan A will cause me great grief?  
And if I start the race with Plan C, I’m completely done-in, because if things go wrong, there is no back-up.  I'm feel I'm not skilled enough to start with plan B and then adapt to plan A.

I am plagued with doubt.

I find myself in what I would call a Kafkaesque situation!

It is as, they say, a situation of nightmarish complexity. It is as they say, a situation which is bizarre and almost illogical.

“Before the Law” is a parable contained in a novel “The Trail” written by Franz Kafka.  

The parable goes like this :

“Before the Law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the Law.

But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment.

The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on.
“It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.”

At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside.

When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.”

The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the Law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside.

There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests.

The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet.

During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the Law.

After many years he no longer has much time to live. Before his death, he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question, which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper.

He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body.

The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.”

“Everyone strives after the Law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?”

The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

So on 29th May, as I stand on the starting gate.  I need to decide, if I have the courage to enter the gate as per Plan A or not.  
I cannot wait for another year, I cannot wait for a life-time.

I want the pleasure of finishing Comrades with the luxury of having more than a few minutes to spare.

I want the luxury of walking into the International tent and meeting my friends and sharing a cup of soup with them while a medal hangs around my neck.

I’ve finished 4 comrades and have never had the luxury of having that soup.  I just make it to the finish with a few minutes to spare.

I don’t want to grow old and weak and then be told by the gatekeeper, "Amit, you were once capable of running Comrades in time enough to enjoy your cup of soup,  and watching the final gun go-off.  
You were capable of running fast enough to not be in that life-and-death situation of making that final cut-off that you found yourself in each year.
You simply had to have the courage to enter the start gate at the right speed.
The gate was meant for you and now it is closed.”

I cannot but try.  This is the year.   This 2016 entrance gate is mine.

I’m going in.

Comrades and Math

Keep your eyes on the stars and feet on the ground : Theodore Roosevelt 

Since the last couple of days my friend Iqbal is trying to convince me that I'm a much faster runner than my past results suggest. 

He asked for my champion chip number and pulled up my split times from the Comrades 2012 and 2014 down runs.  He pointed out that I ran far slower in the first 17.5km of the race than I was capable of running.   

We discussed my best marathon and half marathon and 10k times from the last 9 months and he plugged them into Norrie Williamson's comrades finish-time predictor. 

I also pulled out my log books from 2012 and 2014 Comrades down-runs and analysed the volumes and the distances. 

I re-read all the Bruce Fordyce advice.  I re-heard all the pod casts from Lindsay Perry and Brad Brown. 

I memorised the Comrades route profile.  

I memorised all the ups and the downs on the route.  

I poured over the pacing charts and the prediction tables. 

I've looked at the chats and the diagrams.   I've calculated the split times and the half way times and the cut-off times. 

I've seen the proofs and the equations.  

I've analysed and theorised. 

And now I simply feel tired and sick.   This is too much analysis and information. 

And I realised that I might have become Walt Whitman's learned Astronomer.   

I might be missing the beauty and mystic of the stars for all the math. 

Walt Whitman wrote a wonderful poem about sitting in a classroom and listing to a learned astronomer explaining astronomy.   

The Poem is called,  "When I heard the learned Astronomer" and it goes like this :

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer, 

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, 

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, 

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, 

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, 

Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars." 

I suddenly realised that I have now been sitting In the Comrades Marathon lecture-room,  reading proofs and figures and Columns and looking at diagrams and route elevations and I too have become tired and sick. 

I suddenly realised that I'm missing the Beauty of this race by getting bogged down by the charts and the figures and the predictions. 

The glorious uncertainties of Comrades can't be predicted.   They are by their very nature,  unpredictable. 

The Comrades day unfolds in magical ways and our responses cannot be predicted nor planned.  

The magic of Comrades cannot be analysed with charts and figures and predictions.   

Astronomy cannot be fully enjoyed with figures and columns and charts.  Astronomy can perhaps best be enjoyed by looking at the stars.  

Comrades cannot be enjoyed with an obsession on data. 

Comrades is best lived, on the road, on the day. 

I now await the glorious uncertainties of Comrades day. 

I now await the majestic mystery of Comrades Day.