Pietermaritzburg - American ultra running specialist Camille Herron is back in South Africa with the sole intention of adding the Comrades Marathon down run title to the up run one she won in 2017.
Speaking at the pre-race elite athletes’ media conference on Friday morning, Herron described herself as being thoroughly prepared for Sunday’s 90km run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban.
“I’ve been training at Mount Scott in Oklahoma which has a steeper gradient than Fields Hill. I moved there to prepare for the lots of ups and downs that we are going to run in the Comrades.”
She admitted though, that downhill running is not her forte.
“It is going to be interesting for me to process that we are going in the ‘opposite’ direction. I love going up, and I know it is going to be tough going down Fields Hill, but I have had to prepare for it!”
Herron believes that her trail running will come in handy on Saturday as she looks to depose Ann Ashworth as the reigning down run title holder.
“I’ve been doing a lot of trail running lately and I hope that will be of help. And I am going to give it my best shot to win the Comrades again. I had to choose between running the TMB in America and Comrades and I chose Comrades because it is such a special race.”
For Herron, few races compare to the Comrades when it comes to atmosphere.
“I am so grateful to be back here because everything about the Comrades is amazing. The singing of the Shosholoza at the start and hearing Chariots of Fire gets me emotional and so many of us will be crying at that start line. To have the people cheering us on the road makes me run with joy and I use that joy and gratitude to run.”
Though foreign, Herron will have plenty of support on the road. Besides the locals who took to liking her in 2017 when she won the race and gave those watching at the finish line and on television some heart palpitations as she stopped a few meters from the finish line thinking she’d already crossed it, Herron also has friends out to back her up.
“Some of my friends will be on the road and they’ve said they will offer me some beer when they see me. But I am going to have to pass this time,” the long-haired starlet with an awkward running style chuckled.
She has already been to the finish at the Moses Mabhida Stadium and would love nothing more than to be the first woman to get there.
“I saw the finish line the other day and it was amazing. I can’t wait to get there.”
She will, however, have to get the better of the likes of Ashworth, Adele Broodryk, Jenna Challenor and Charne Bosman, to complete the Comrades double.
IOL Sport