MARK ETHERIDGE: The Comrades pride of 1993, three decades on

Forty-four years ago in June, a young pig-tailed blonde woman was perched on the bonnet of her dad’s car puffing on a cigarette on top of Polly Shortts hill as Piet Vorster pulled off his only Comrades Marathon win.

Five years later Tilda Tearle had swapped the packet of Ransom 20s for running shoes and lined up for her first Comrades Marathon in 1984. Another nine years of running eventually saw her perched on top of the women’s podium at the 1993 “down” run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban — the pride of SA road running.

But it was the first live television coverage of Comrades in 1983 that had got her hooked. “I told my husband Clive that I’d be running Comrades the next year, and that I was starting training right away,” she recalls.

Both wearing white takkies the couple started their Comrades training with a 3km jaunt around the streets of Morningside, Durban. But the improvement was rapid ... Tilda had talent!

“I ran my first marathon in 1984, the Hillcrest Marathon, and finished in 3hr 37min. Savages Athletic Club won the team prize and I won R10 — I didn’t even know you could win money for running.”

On to her first Comrades, the “down” run, with her family having organised a Fanta grape and Chelsea bun for sustenance at the halfway mark. She ended up skipping the drink and bun but distinctly remembers having a cup of soup in Hillcrest.

“I finished in 8:49:40, was 45th woman and absolutely elated though the day after my first run I was so sore I wondered if I’d ever run again.”

The improvement continued and in 1986 she ran her first silver (sub 7:30). She may have been shocked to have done so well but she wasn’t as shocked as Clive. He remembers vividly: “I thought she’d finish around midafternoon ... so was having a beer with some mates.

“It was just before 1.30pm [the race started at 6am in those days] and then I suddenly saw her crossing the line on TV, so she’d really caught me in the act. That’s when we realised she had some potential,” he recalled this week.

As for Tilda the next few years started becoming almost a logical progression as she’d “served a long apprenticeship having already finished fourth, third, second and finally first in a time of 6:55:07” in 1993.

As for Clive, he was a bit further back in the field. “I was in Kloof when I heard the news from people who’d been watching the race on television so I was a rather proud husband for the last 30km or so.”

The same year was the first time international runners took part in the Comrades (Germany’s Charly Doll won the men’s race) and it was still very much the “amateur” days.

“My gold medal was an ounce of pure gold and there was also a bunch of flowers from Comrades. My running club gave me champagne and more flowers, and my shoe sponsor, Asics, gave me R2,500 for my efforts — which we put towards a trip to Mauritius.”

The date of May 31 2023 marked the 40th anniversary of Tilda’s first run and even though her running exploits have shone through, she’s had to tread some dark pathways.

In 2020 the predominant word in her vocabulary was not Comrades but cancer. A small lump in her left breast was giving her reason for concern and things escalated from bad to worse and weren’t made easier by the country still being in hard lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I opted for local anaesthetic to have the lump taken out so I could go home the same day but two days later the doc phoned me to say the lump was malignant.”

There was also a choice of a mastectomy, which would mean she wouldn’t need radiation, but for the Comrades queen of 1993 there was no option. “I’m a girl and I need my boobs, both of them.”

She had the cancerous material removed on June 24 and her surgeon said no further cancer had been detected. But there were still 20 gruelling sessions of radiation, not helped by the enormous stress taking its toll on Clive, who himself had to be hospitalised when his heart went into fibrillation.

“Finally on August 19 2020 I had the last radiation and literally skipped out of hospital. I still cannot say out loud that I’ve had breast cancer. I rather say that I had a malignant lump removed.”

Tearle would finally conclude her Comrades career having conquered an impressive 30 of the endurance epics. She has done enough walking the talk in terms of running Comrades and now sticks to daily walks and sessions of yoga or swimming (she has 25 Midmar Miles under her belt).

Cancer may be out of her system but Comrades will always be in her system, she even has the experience (good and bad) of both, permanently imprinted on her wrist in the shape of a phoenix next to the words “grateful 5701”, the digits of her permanent Comrades green number.

And she’ll be back this Sunday, when runners striving to beat the 7hr 30min silver medal cut-off time will have to make sure to beat the gun fired by the petite pig-tailed national pride of 1993.