Comrades is an event that involves the whole family. For most it is just one member of the family that is actually running but the entire family will have their routines and social activities rescheduled around their Comrades runner’s requirements. In households with kids where both partners run, careful coordination, negotiation and planning is required to ensure that everyone gets in enough distance to secure a medal in June.
However, for some families it’s not just weddings and funerals that brings them together. For these families, Comrades becomes a big day out and a fantastic family outing. Mark, Kathleen, Matthew, Daniel and Joshua Greeff are one such family.
Mark got the ball rolling with his first Comrades in 1990 when he was doing his national service with the Parabats in Bloemfontein. When his Colonel, the experienced Comrades runner James Hills (Green Number 1045 with 21 medals), announced that anyone who joined him on the 1990 Up run would get ‘extra leave’, a 19-year-old Mark jumped* at the chance and ended up with a 10h13 finish.
* Jumping is of course one of the key attributes if one wants to be successful within a parachute battalion.
After national service, Mark moved back to the lowveld where he met and married Kathleen. The Greeffs joined running section of the Lowveld Country Club (LVCC) which later became the Nedbank Running Club in Mpumalanga. Kathleen was initially introduced to Comrades as part of Mark’s seconding team (along with their three boys) at the 2004 Up run – and it was a good thing that they were there to support as Mark squeaked home in 11h53.
The Comrades bug bit Kathleen and she joined Mark as well as Mark’s brother Matthew for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 runs. However, 2011 was a rough year and resulted in Mark’s only DNF. Mark and Kathleen had recently divorced, and he managed to make it to his club’s final seconding table at Camperdown (around 60km) when called it quits. Mark explains, “From the start my mind was not on the race. At Camperdown, I sat down, took off my vest, tore up my number and had a beer and smoke*.”
* This is another reason why smoking is bad for you. On my last Up run, I had a beer (but no smoke) at the Fourways table in Camperdown and I managed to run up the whole of Polly Shortts to sneak in for the newly introduced Robert Mtshali medal.
However, like a Bill Rowan medal, Comrades always provides silver linings for those that look for them, “Although I later regretted the decision to bail, it mentally made me into a much stronger, tougher runner in the years to come. I have realized that to finish the Comrades, it comes down to about 70% mental preparation and strength.” Another heartening lesson is that, despite separating, Mark and Kathleen still do much of their of training together with middle son Daniel joining as well.
Daniel is the only of their offspring to already have a Comrades finish under his belt. With the brashness and bravery of youth, and with just one marathon and 400km of training to his name, Daniel announced he would join his dad at Comrades 2022 (as long as his dad paid for the entry).
Daniel decided to put his dad’s mantra, “Comrades is 70% mental preparation and strength” to the test. The experiment lasted 11 hours 55 minutes and 33 seconds with the two of them finishing together after, “A very long day on the road together, sharing lots of pain, anger, laughs, anguish and joy in the end.” Kathleen and her boyfriend Blake were on seconding duties and managed to meet up with their runners five times along the route (anyone who needs seconding tips should get hold of Kathleen – the most seconding support on a single run that I thought possible was three).
As for the two novices, eldest son Matthew works in the yachting industry in France. He does all his running solo along the docks and also spends plenty of time cross training on his surfboard. Youngest son Joshua is one of just eleven 20-year-olds at this year’s Comrades. He plays Premier League Cricket in the UK and will be taking special leave to compete in his first Comrades. As an opening batsman he does plenty of running between the wickets – incidentally this year’s Comrades distance of 85.91km would be the equivalent of scoring 4,270 runs (with no boundaries).
Although they secured a variety of different seedings (with Joshua claiming the bragging rights for the fastest qualifier), the Greeff family will all be starting together in H batch but plan to split up and run their own races later on the day. If you want to see who claims family bragging rights at Comrades 2024, you can track the Greeffs (Mark 48127, Kathleen 36857, Matthew 50366, Daniel 43300, and Joshua 50265) and any of the other 20,574 qualified entrants on the brand new race day app.
Afterword
The Greeff family are raising money for the Childhood Cancer Foundation (CHOC) and you can support their cause here: https://charity.easyreg.co.za/comrades-marathon-2024/mark-greeff/childhood-cancer-foundation-choc
Mark originally contacted me as he was interested in what the ‘record’ for the family with the most members running the same Comrades is. You can see some great pictures and comments on the Facebook post I did here.
The record as far as I can tell is the Loubser family who had 7 brothers and 1 sister run together at the 1989 Down run. They all ran in the colours of Ndaba Athletics Club and finished together in 10h36. I am busy trying to get more information on this incredible achievement – if anyone has more information please let me know (therunningmann@gmail.com).
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