Shaun Hurlow

My family and I moved from South Africa to New Zealand 17 years ago, but I had grown up watching Comrades Marathon every year, marvelling at the stamina of the athletes as they covered the 89km distance. My Dad was also a comrades fan, and when I was a child, ran the race 10 times. As an adult, I had never run a marathon, let alone an ultra marathon but when an opportunity arose where we would be living in South Africa for a year doing volunteer charity work, i took it as my chance to get into running and sign up for the Comrades marathon. I registered for my first marathon with trepidation and started a schedule which would build my fitness. In those months it was difficult to motivate myself and track my performance, and with injuries which plagued me, the training became very difficult.Finally for my birthday my wife ordered a Polar foot pod and watch online. I was able to track my distances without getting the car out to measure the road afterwards, and see how my progress was going. The day of the race came. My Dad had flown over for the event and had decided to run alongside me. Disaster had struck, and I had ITB in my knee which had caused me to not be able to run for the past few weeks. We decided to start the race anyway and see how the first 20km went. Well, im happy to say at 30km we were feeling ok, and once we got to 60km, the thought that we only had 30km to go was too good! So we carried on.My Dad and I finished Comrades with 15 minutes until cut off. It was such a highlight to complete a goal I had admired as a child, and cross the finish line with my Father. Big thanks goes to Polar for making such a fantastic tool to help in that very gruelling process! Awesome stuff guys.