Seventh day, seventh friend, seventh run

For my last 'friend' run of the week, I met up with orienteering and rogaining friend, Tania, in Ferndale. I met Tania many years ago through orienteering, getting to know her much better in recent years after we became rogaine partners. She whips my butt at orienteering but we make a super rogaining partnership. I haven't had much focus on my orienteering for the past two years, especially with the long course events that I so enjoy (Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge prep really disrupted my O attendance). I hope to be able to give her a bit of competition this year - I will have to work really hard!

It has been raining all day in Jo'burg so I suspected that we were going to be in for a wet run, but we got lucky with a light drizzle in the beginning, which stopped after a short while. Tania took me on a super route through Ferndale and towards St Stithians, a school we use for orienteering short course events. They've got a really nice trail loop around the perimeter of the property.

When I chatted to Tania earlier she wanted to check that we were still on for this evening, what with the afternoon traffic and the rain. I'd circumvented the traffic by heading through early to drop off a kayak and run other errands in the area. As for the rain... "You're my seventh run buddy for the week so come hell or high water, we're running," was my reply.

And that's just the thing that this fun exercise this week has taught me... Running with my friends has been so enjoyable; both for their company and for the runs - my favourite discipline of 'em all. And having my friends all lined up and committed to our runs has meant that no matter what, we would be running.

As I said to Tania, I have not had seven days of consecutive running for way, way too long. Clive's comment about "Is it a good enough reason not to run?" has been at the front of my mind all week and when I think of all the runs I missed last year because of this or that... Achieving balance between work-play-this-and-that is hard but possibly made easier, like this week demonstrated, when I prioritise me - and rope in some friends to keep me company.

Dane, Tony, Allison, Roger, Sarah, Nicholas and Tania - thank you friends for making this the most wonderful week of running, chatting and enjoyable company. You've really helped me to kick-start my year, to prioritise me and this discipline of running that has been a major part of my life for the better part of 18 years.