As you get into
your Comrades
training you will soon realise that you have two types of
friends,
namely
your Comrades friends and your
other
friends. For the
duration of your
training it might be a good idea to stick with the Comrades
friends. Why? Well
you need to be in the company of like
minded people. Your
Comrades
friends will understand when you need to leave a party at
9.30pm because you are running
in the morning. I’m
not so sure
about your other friends! I
think it is
tougher when you are the only
one running
the Comrades
in
your family. You
need to get the rest of
your family to also ‘buy
into the
programme’ so to speak.
In
my
family, both me and my husband train for Comrades so it does make
things a lot
easier as we are both on the same page.
Our
daughters, Heather and Shannon, have been a part
of our Comrades
preparations since 1998 so they are pretty experience Comrades ‘support
crew’. As
a Comrades
runner in training
you will need to ‘buy some credit’ with your family as they
are not always
going to be thrilled to have to go along with your training plans week
after
week. Running Comrades is
a give and
take affair where family is concerned.
Part
of the payback our girls get is that we include
them in our Durban plans.
That way they get
to have a bit of a holiday (miss a
few days of school
– BONUS!!!) and at the same time we have the support of our
nearest and dearest
on race day. It
doesn’t get better
than
that!
An update to this page!
I
am very proud to be able to report our running way of life has rubbed
off on Heather, our oldest daughter. At 20, she was the youngest
starter in this year's Comrades (2010).
Key words: Comrades
friends,
support crew, running, friends and family
Internal links: Comrades, buy
into the
programme, Durban
External links: Official Comrades Marathon
website