Comrades: late training tips from Norrie

For Comrades runners the peak training stops this weekend.

If you haven’t done it by Sunday you haven’t done it and that's that - with few exceptions!

Your Comrades 2014 training is over by Sunday and hopefully you have spent the last three weeks putting in slow and gentle running at a pace very similar to your predicted Comrades pace.

Many runners focus on trying to put in as many kilometres as they can in a week, but that is less important than running the distance at a pace that reflects the time you can achieve in Comrades on 1 June.

That target time and pace is determined by your best marathon or 5km race.

So for instance to get a silver Comrades medal (7:30 or better) you need to have a 10km time of about 38 minutes and a best marathon under 3:07.  This will mean that your Comrades pace will average 5 minutes per km.  

Similarly for the Bill Rowan Medal you need around a 45 minute 10km and a 3:42 marathon, which means an average Comrades pace of 6 minutes per km.

For an 11 hour finish you need a 4 hours 32 minutes marathon and a 7:20 per km Comrades pace.

To beat the 12 hours cut-off and get a Vic Clapham medal requires a 4:55 marathon (although there is an allowance for a 5 hour qualifying time) and a 8 minute per km Comrades pace.

You will immediately notice that the Comrades pace is substantially slower than your normal marathon pace.

This is about 20% slower and therefore, because you use different muscles in running either slower or faster, it is VITAL that your long runs have been at this slow Comrades pace.

Those runners who fail to train at Comrades pace frequently experience cramps on Comrades day, because the muscles fatigue from their different use and under-training.

So look again at the above paces and if you haven’t been training slow enough up until now, make a point of going slower this weekend where you can go longer than 25km for the last time before the race.

How far do you go?

Well, because this is the last opportunity for a long run, you can take it up to about 35km maybe 40km for the faster or more experienced runner, but if you go any further than that it, is unlikely that your legs will recovery fully before the day.

In reality you need to do what your mind tells you that you need, so you are confident that you can complete Comrades. Physiologically by this time you don't actually need to go over a 2-3 hour run time, but many runners feel they need to do one last long one before the 90km.

Perhaps a better way of doing this is to split the long run into two - onne on Saturday of say 25km and one on Sunday of say 15-18km. That way you get 38-42km over the weekend, but without the massive muscle destruction that occurs when you exceed 25km.

Remember this will be at projected Comrades pace, but (as they say in all good adverts) that is not all.

Very few runners do or indeed should run non-stop in Comrades.

There will be times when you walk and also there is basically no flat section in the down run Comrades until you reach Pine Street 2km from the finish.

It is therefore better to develop and adopt a run-and-walk strategy that you implement from the gun.

The average Comrades runner will finish around 10 hours 30 minutes, which is an average pace of 6:45 per km, so in training practice running at 6:30 per km for say 5-6km and then split this with a 2 minute walk.  

Another great benefit of this approach is that you are no longer running 90km non-stop but instead you are doing roughly 15 x 5.85km with a 2 minute walk where your run is at 6:30 per km.

Putting this into perspective, a person able to do 10 hours 30 minutes has a best time for 5.85km of just under 32 minutes (5:27) and a marathon pace of 6 minutes per km.  

On Comrades day each 5.85km is run at 6:30 per km a full minute per km slower than short distance race pace and 30 seconds per km slower than the marathon pace!

Then you get 2 minutes to cover 150m as recovery.

Mentally of course you also have the benefit of splitting the long challenging distance of 90km into 15 small steps on a ladder leading to a solid bronze medal.

Now that massive task seems so much more achievable - and IT IS!

(File Photo:Gallo Images)

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