The Secret Life Of… a support runner
Helping someone to achieve their marathon goal is rewarding and great fun, says Sarah Jones
It’s a bit like being a guide runner.
The only difference is that a guide runner is for someone with a visual impairment, whereas a support runner is for someone who needs assistance for another reason. Megan Thomas, who I run with, has a learning difficulty.
As a support runner, the focus isn’t on you.
It’s a bit like being a pacer. You are running at a comfortable pace so you can concentrate on how your running partner is getting on. In some ways, that makes it easier.
You have to get to know the person you’re running with.
You need to train with them, because you need to know when you can push them and when to ease off. Megan and I run together on Tuesdays at Brookside Runners, on Thursdays we run with Penny Lane Striders, while on Saturdays we normally do parkrun, and then we’ll do a few Sunday long runs together before the event.
My best memory from the 2019 London Marathon
was running past a family who had a daughter with Down’s syndrome. Seeing the look on her face when she saw Megan was just amazing. I said to Megan, ‘Because she’s seen you do this today, she’s going to grow up thinking that she can run a marathon.’
Over 26.2 miles, most of us become mentally fatigued.
If you already find it more difficult to work out things like when you should be eating and drinking, or what your pace should be, it really is important to have somebody with you to make sure you’re all right.
Running with a tether takes some getting used to.
I picked up a yellow one so it was a bit more visible. Most people are good at giving you space, but my biggest fear is that I’ll get separated from Megan during the race.
You should practise running in the support bib.
That’s something you don’t take into account. I rocked up to the London Marathon Expo and had a look at the bib – it had ties underneath the arms, which looked like they were really going to chafe, so I had to make some alterations!
Megan has a pretty good sprint finish on her.
At London 2019, I told her if I beat her over the line, she’d have to give me a piggy-back to the hotel. Normally, she’d beat me but we finished at about the same time, which shows the effort she’d put in.
I’m the Chief Executive of Mencap Liverpool and Sefton.
I’m so excited that Mencap is the London Marathon charity of the year in 2020. Showing that people with learning difficulties can achieve incredible things, such as running a marathon, is such a powerful message – Megan and I will be on the start line again this year.
Helping someone achieve their goal is incredible.
That feeling when they cross the line. I was sad when it was over, because I was enjoying it so much and we’d had such an amazing journey. I wrote a little card to Megan, saying ‘Now that you’ve done this, you know that whatever you face in life, you can achieve it because you’ve just run a bloody marathon.’ She keeps quoting that back to me.
‘YOU HAVE TO GET TO KNOW THE PERSON YOU’RE RUNNING WITH. YOU HAVE TO TRAIN WITH THEM’