Community is really important to us. Without it, there wouldn’t be a magazine. Over the past year and a bit, we’ve loved growing our list of contributors, readers and friends but we probably enjoy meeting runners in person the most. It’s when we can exchange stories, hear all the gritty details and ask questions about each and every mile.
So it was an absolute pleasure to get to spend 24 hours with seven members of the running community at the Adidas Thunder Run. Last weekend competition winners Lucy, Craig, Jayne, Jana, Adrien and two Davids joined captain, Jen to create team Like the Wind x Adidas (who had kindly provided the spot).
After gathering on the Saturday morning and scribbling down some team tactics, we immediately got down to the important details – who’s run what, how fast and when. Thus began a never-ending string of conversations suggesting new races, reliving favourite runs, encouraging the signing up of new challenges and sharing each twist, turn and muddy slide we took whilst out on the #TR24 course.
The beauty of spending the weekend with seven other runners – you don’t have to change the conversation topic to prevent boredom. In fact we talked about little else than running…except food. That featured a lot during the race – it’s surprising what you can stomach for a 2am breakfast before another 10k lap, when you have interesting company to distract.
It was telling even from the first lap that we were in good company, as our first runner reluctantly strolled over to the start with a mere minute to spare, still pinning his bib. 24 hours later, we gathered in the pouring rain to cheer in our last runner and celebrate the completion of our 27th lap, bringing us in at 34th place and giving us yet more running stories to tell.