A Beautiful Son

by Ilodia Dias Ravenscroft

My son is my running partner. I am a mother of 3, 37 years old, 16 year old son, 12 year old daughter and 2 and a half year old baby boy (not a baby anymore, but yes) I lost a lot of weight after the “baby” to be exact, 30kg. When the kg’s dropped I started running. (August 2009)

Oh my word and how difficult was that, I could not ran 200m without huffing and puffing, telling my husband my heart is on fire, my eldest son and daughter just ran past us smiling telling us to run not walk.

I just kept on running everyday (my husband stopped, it wasn’t for him).

As I grew fitter my son started running with me helping me along the loooong way. Everyday I ran further and further, my son was busy at school with rugby so most of the time I ran alone, once of twice a week we will get up at 04:45 for him to run with me, until one Sunday morning, I asked him if he would like to run with me, he was in his running shoes and there we go, HE SUFFERED not me.

What a great feeling, he told his dad that he could not stay with mom, It felt real good. In August 2010 we ran our first 21km in Potchefstroom. My son was with me all the way saying “come on mom you can do it” “come on mom all your hard work every day, lets finish this race” when we reached 13km I told him that I cannot feel my legs “come on mom we are almost there, if you don’t finish you would blame yourself afterwards” I just kept on running, when we reached the 5km mark he said “we are almost there, imagine we are now on our Saturday morning run and on our way home” we finished with a fantastic time and was very proud of ourselves. I could never have done it without him.

In January 2011 we did our 2nd 21km and at the Ottosdal Draf en Trap run last weekend we did our 3rd 21km, In this race on the last 600m stretch I told him “Eugene you are running to fast for mommy” he just laughed and said “we are almost finished, I am racing you to the finish line!”

I told him “if you ever decide not to run anymore, I would stop as well” I could never done it without him. Afterwards he told his dad that he could never tell me when he is tired or wants to stop because then mom would stop as well and he knows how much running meant to me, he only exercise at school and don’t know how he stays fit but he is willing to suffer for me just to help me to achieve my goal.

Our next goal is a 42km and then it Comrades. He can only do Comrades when he is 18 so I am waiting for him to do it with me. I could never do it by myself, and this is something we would like to do together for the first time. We were always close, but since we are running together the bond that is already there developed in something unexplainable.

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