A Story of Courage

I write this with tears in my eyes. Tears of pride and joy.

My dear friend Aileen has just crossed the finish line of the the Comrades marathon - a run of 90km between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. But for Aileen, it wasn't that simple. Since she entered the race last year, it has been a momentous struggle to get to the start line.

Its been months of fighting niggles and muscle tweaks and the constant nerves of a big goal. She dealt with both injury and fear with eveness and acceptance. And when the final large hip injury struck just weeks before the event, she fought back despite the naysayers. With a week to go, she managed to get on top of the injury but life hadn't finished yet.

She and Doug had travelled to Pietermaritzburg for the race and when they stopped to collect her race number, their car was broken into. Everything was taken.
All the carefully packed running kit, the worn in shoes, the running belt with all the pre-packed kit she would need - everything. It was a devastating blow.

But she fought back again, bought brand new stuff ignoring the old adage of nothing new on race day. Having come so far and through so much, she refused to allow these petty thieves to take the dream away.

She finished.

I am so proud to have run just some of the way with Aileen over the last couple of months.

30 May 2010
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A Story of Courage

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