ROAD RUNNING
MA : So , if you get elite seeding , will you then go line up at the front and race it ? RK : Sorry , we ’ re just going to use the toilet , but don ’ t tell anybody ... ( More laughter )
MA : I am so publishing that ! But in all seriousness , is this a racing outing for you two , or are you planning to just run it for the experience ? RK : I think we ’ ll just go for the experience , so we ’ re definitely not aiming at the top 10 , but we ’ re training for silver . We know it ’ s Comrades , that anything can happen , so it ’ s all about getting the experience to maybe to race it in the near future .
MA : What are your thoughts about the distance of Comrades ? I think 56km is the longest either of you have raced before , but have you ever gone further in training ? CK : How long did Otter take you , René ? RK : That doesn ’ t count . CK : But you were on your feet . RK : True . I was on my feet for nine hours and 45 minutes . My Strava moving was seven hours , so everybody thought I was waiting a lot for Andre , but I wasn ’ t standing still , I was actually moving . Andre was the one waiting for me !
CK : That was the previous year ’ s anniversary gift , wasn ’ t it ?
RK : We thought trail running would level the playing field in our running , and that we can do it together , but boy were we wrong . It was the total opposite , actually . Funny story , on our first trail run together , we were 14 kays into the race and had to take an Uber home – otherwise we would have missed Reuben ’ s birthday party , because we were going so slowly !
MA : Which ties back to my earlier question , whether you girls are intending to race Comrades or just enjoy the experience ... because your husbands are known for sneaking in under the 12-hour cut-off . Are you planning to run with them ? RK : I had to break the news to Andre that even though he bought me the Comrades entry as an anniversary gift , I ’ m not planning on running together . CK : Remind me what Andre ’ s best Comrades time is ?
RK : I ’ m not sure , I think he ’ s gone under 11 hours , but the last few years he was just dipping under 12 hours . And this will also be his first Comrades after the birth of Karli , so that ’ s seven years . It just shows the effect of having kids on the entire family .
René in action during the recent Pirates 21K in Johannesburg .
René with Andre and the kids , Karli and Ivan .
MA : Christine , on that , is Aiden running again ? CK : Yes , he is going for his Back-to-Back . But I had such a chuckle the other day . He was telling somebody that he lined up in the H batch at the start last year , and he ’ s ready to go , and then he turns around and the ambulances are right there , and he ’ s like , really ?
MA : So , are you and husbands all training together , or are you two doing faster workouts than the guys ? How ’ s it working at the moment with juggling work , family and running ? RK : I think that ’ s also another spanner in the wheels ... I started to teach again this year , and I ’ m now a full-time teacher at the local primary school , so that makes things a bit difficult . I train at five in the morning , and I basically have an hour , maybe an hour and a half to train . Luckily , Andre is not a morning person , so he prefers to train in the afternoon , and that helps a lot , but over the weekends we have to take turns . So , we ’ re doing long runs on a Saturday and a Sunday , and we try to juggle it like that . But over the weekends , Christine and I train together most of the time .
CK : With us , Aiden gets Tuesdays and Fridays to run in the mornings , and then those days I ’ ll just go in the afternoons . I worked as a civil engineer for 12 years , and then last year in November , I decided to make a change , and moved to data analytics . I was training like a professional , but I think the difference was that I couldn ’ t recover like a professional .
MA : So , getting back to the distance of Comrades , is it something that you find daunting , or do you think to yourself , we ’ ve raced the Olympic Marathon ,
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