Category Archive for ‘Uncategorized’ at Comrades Marathon Blog

Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

The Not So Frequent update

Published
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Andrew
on 4 June, 2008
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I’ve been very quiet, and with 11 days until Comrades, it’s time for me to update on what I’ve been up to. I though I’d compile a list of NSFAQ (Not so frequently asked questions) for the three of you that are interested:

Q: How’s the training gone since Two Oceans?

A: Well I took a week off training, basically just tried to recover. I slowly increased my mileage up to 120km a week, and now I’m tapering. I like graphs, so let me show you one:

April_May_KM

The above bar graph shows my weekly mileage divided up to into my different types of runs.

Q: What happened in the week 19 May to 25 May?

A: That was terrible. I got a stomach bug on the Monday, followed by a cold. Only managed to run three times, overdosing on Vitamin C seemed to work. I managed my long run fine though, which was 35km.

Q: Any highlights of the training so far?

A: A few. I ran a time trial 2 weeks after Two Oceans and got a PB of 17:25, which felt great. Another highlight was the Four Hills for Lindsay 56km training run. I completed this in 5 hours, and felt fantastic, a real confident booster.

Q: And lows?

A: Not that many, the combine long run and race on the 4th of May was quite tough. I ran the very hilly VWS 25km trail race followed by another 20km in howling wind and rain was quite testing. My 36km long run on the 13th of April was also tough, as I neglected to eat in the morning, and I started late.

Q: What is your total mileage for the year?

A: As of the 4th of June, I’m sitting on 1741km, so I think I’ve done just about enough. Would have liked closer to 1900, but rather be undertrained than overtrained as they say.

Q: What is your goal time?

A: 7:25, which would give me a silver. I’ll go into more detail in a future post.

Ok, so now that I’ve self indulged myself enough, please comment and tell me how your training is going, and how you are feeling about the big day. I would love to hear!

Comrades 2007 - Who’s going to take it?

Published
by
Andrew
on 15 June, 2007
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ZondiBrian I’ve been meaning to write  a post on who the favourite’s are for this year’s down running of Comrades, but I came across this syndicated article on The Final Sprint. It’s a good read into who’s competing and what kind of form they are in.

The stats on the race are quite astounding, and show the massive logistical effort required on a race this big over 89km.

“400,000 plastic bottles, 2,000 littler bins and 10,000 litter bags, 448 bags of oranges, 5400 kg of bananas, 350,000 sachets of energy drinks, 1000 kg of chocolates, 500 kg of potatoes, more than 200 kg of biscuits and 2000 cases of Coca-Cola will be distributed along the route.”

I personally hope Brian Zondi will win the men’s race, but as long as any South African wins, I’ll be happy. Vladimir Kotov is a resident of Cape Town, so I hope he does well, but at 49, he’s not really a favourite, but one can never count him out  completely.

Unfortunately, South Africa’s chances in the woman’s race are not  good, with the Russians dominating. My hopes are on Farwa Mentoor to finish first amongst the South Africans, and I’ve seen her on several local Cape Town races.

Some more Comrades related news below:

Comrades 2008 starts now

Published
by
Andrew
on 8 June, 2007
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My training for Comrades 2008 started this week. I know it’s over a year away, but I like following a structured plan, this is how I’m going to build my strength.

My schedule below is for treadmill running, and starts from this Monday, the 11th of June.

Week Monday Wed Friday Saturday
11 June 11 Min @ 10km/hr 11 Min @ 10km/hr 12 Min @ 10km/hr 20 Min @ 10km/hr
18 June 15 Min @ 10km/hr 15 Min @ 10km/hr 20 Min @ 10km/hr 25 Min @ 10km/hr
25 June 20 Min @ 10km/hr 20 Min @ 10km/hr 20 Min @ 10km/hr 30 Min @ 10km/hr
2 July 20 Min @ 11km/hr 20 Min @ 11km/hr 20 Min @ 11km/hr 35 Min @ 10km/hr

Rest/Cycle in days between.

I’m also doing gym work , focusing on lower leg strength. I’ll post more on that this weekend. If all goes well, I should be able to start running outdoors in the second week of July.

Like a piece of lead

Published
by
Andrew
on 20 May, 2007
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Cape Town is currently experiencing some rather cold and wet weather. While it’s a nice change, it doesn’t help as I planned to get some longer cycles in this weekend. So I decided to go to the gym, except I thought I’d try the swimming thing.

Now, I’m a land animal.  I can run and cycle, both of which, I enjoy. Swimming however, I don’t enjoy. I’m aware of the benefits of swimming, and after buying goggle’s and a swim cap several months ago, I finally put them to use today.

So this evening I head down the gym, and decide to try out this swimming thing. Very quickly I rediscovered that I swim like a piece of lead. I was absolutely exhausted after swimming crawl just one length. I suffered through a few lengths, then switched to breaststroke. Surprisingly, I managed about 20 more lengths, then gave up. A total of 26 lengths, and 18 minutes of swimming.

After a run, and sometimes a cycle, I feel great, like I’ve achieved something. My swim this evening left me with a headache, pretty much how a piece of lead might feel after being thrown into a pool. Not a feeling of achievement, no. But I’m not giving up, I’m going to buy fins (or flippers if you prefer) tomorrow, which will aid in the recovery of my ankle. I suspect I simply need need to improve my stroke so that I swim more efficiently, which will hopefully allow me to enjoy the swimming more.

So if you see me at the Virgin Active in Sea Point, please don’t point and laugh, I’m a runner.

Life on crutches

Published
by
Andrew
on 12 March, 2007
in Uncategorized
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I’ve been meaning to post an update on my recovery after the operation for a while now, but never got round to it, so here’s my rather belated update.

After getting home, it didn’t take me long to get settled into the couch. I was told I had to spend a week on my back, that’s exactly what I did. My foot remained elevated for 90% of the time, except when I hobbled to the bathroom. I didn’t move outside of the lounge and bedroom in a week. It did help that every time I got up off the couch, the blood rushing to my foot cause me so much pain that it was difficult to think. So it was best just not to move.

Then last week Wednesday, I went back to the doctor, to have the heavy cast removed, and a lighter, fibreglass cast replaced it. Much better. The doctor was happy with my progress, and even commented that the swelling looked good. So now with the lighter cast, I could go back to work.

Then on Thursday, I headed into the back into the office. I wasn’t very capable on the crutches yet, but I was getting used to them. The pain for most of the day was unbearable, as my foot was only slightly elevated. I even had my feet on the desk at one stage!  It did improve very quickly though, and by Friday, all was much better.

I have to say that I’m missing running terribly. Every time I needed to discuss something with myself, the road was there gladly waiting. Saying it’s my personal therapist would be going too far, but you know what I mean. All this means is that I can’t wait to get back on the road, you never realise how much you miss something, until it’s gone.