I'm here for the long run

So, your friends love marathons? Show up for them as their hype buddy. They'll thank you for the extra water and motivation

- Kritika Kapoor [e-mail]

So, your friend is running a marathon. Naturally, you want to be supportive. But cheering from the sidelines on race day is only half the job. Training starts anywhere between 16 to 20 weeks earlier — that’s nearly five months of pre-dawn alarms, long runs on unforgiving city roads, cancelled plans, sore legs and the kind of mental gymnastics usually reserved for bad breakups. They're going to need a hype buddy. This is how to do it — before, during and after race day — without pulling a hamstring.

Meet them halfway. Sneha Shah, run coach at SohFit Mumbai, says her friends often help her along her 20km runs by showing up with water and electrolyte gels. "If I pass an area where a friend lives, they meet me in their cars with water."