The racing up front of the Discovery Surfers is always intense and made more so by the different conditions facing runners each year.

It is well documented that the guys who win are special athletes and all have run at the highest levels of races in South Africa and in some instances, abroad.

What about the guys vying to sneak in to the Top 10 – and the prestige that goes with it?

They will be well educated in the knowledge that the slightest slip in the build up or on race day itself may have them relinquish their dream.

For the purposes of this article let us look at four men who are likely to be knocking on the door come 18 February. All four are at different stages of their careers with one literally starting out and another who has been around a fair while.

The running times of these four men at Surfers over the past three years have a similar thread and in 2010, when the tides were at their highest in memory, they were very close to one another. Interestingly it was the runner with the most experience of the four who triumphed in the conditions.

Hayden Wood finished 10th in 83:36, while Raymond de Klerk was 12th in 84:14, Alex Rossouw 13th in 85:01 and Craig Alers 14th in 85:26.

Not once in the last three years have they all made the top 10 – in fact only once, in 2009 have more than one of them been up there. Wood has made top 10 twice, both occasions in 10th place, but failed last year, finishing 16th. Alers finished 7th in 2009 and was pipped into 11th place last year, while Rossouw was the surprise package in 6th place in 2011. De Klerk has two 12th spots and will be looking for his first Top 10 and yet he has beaten all the others at least once.

Rest assured all are hard at work preparing for the 2012 chapter of Discovery Surfers – what a cracker of a race within a race this could turn out to be.