Tag Archive for ‘Comrades’ at Comrades Marathon Blog

Tag Archive for 'Comrades'

Advice from a legend

There are many columnists penning their words about Comrades, Bruce Fordyce is arguably the most revered. His column with the Citizen has been excellent, and his last contains a very important bit of advice: Drive the course the day before.

I highly recommend, if you haven’t read them before, to go and have read of his previous columns:

Comrades Marathon Expo

As with any big race, the expo is a highlight for many runners. Expect to get many things at this expo, from pacing charts to anti-chafing cream. It’s a great place to meet other runners, chat to the official Comrades Coach and purchase some merchandise. It’s also the place to go and pick up your entry.

Tips for the Expo

  • Don’t wander around the expo for hours, especially if you’re going on Saturday. You’ll feel it the next day.
  • Try not to get conned by people selling “miracle” drugs/food that you’ve never tried before. That’s just asking for trouble.
  • Try and catch one of the route description talk. Take note of the hills during the first 35km.
  • Purchase an appropriate pacing chart, they cost R20 and proceeds go to charity.
  • It gets very cold at the start, while you’re waiting for the gun to go off. If you don’t have an old shirt to wear at the start, purchase a “throw a way” at the expo. This you can discard as you warm up.

Any more tips? Let me know in the comments.

Dates and Times for the Expo

12 June 2008 (Thursday) : 09h00 - 19h00

13 June 2008 (Friday)      : 09h00 - 19h00

14 June 2008 (Saturday)  : 09h00 - 17h00

Getting to the Expo

The 2008 expo is taking place at the Durban Exhibition Centre, on Walnut rd in Durban itself. It’s actually not far from the start of race on West street, outside the Durban City Hall. I’ve pasted a map below which should give an idea of where it is.

The Not So Frequent update

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!

Two Oceans 2009 Info

I interrupt the silence on this blog for some breaking news:

Running Comrades in 2008 will NOT qualify you for Two Oceans 2009.  Nor will Two Oceans 2008. You will have to run a marathon between 1 September 2008 and 4 March 2009. I’m still trying to think why, and if this will have an effect already slowing numbers in the ultra. Any ideas?

Read more.

Help Richard Run

BeeldComradesfinishAll this fuss over Oscar Pistorius, has taken some spotlight away from another double amputee athlete, Richard Whitehead. I blogged about Richard last year when he managed to run the down run in just under 10 hours. Quite an amazing achievement. The organisers were so impressed they gave him a “Spirit of Comrades” award.

Richard has been busy during the past few months, he ran an incredible 3:38 at the Rome Marathon last month in March. In March he ran a total 145km in races, competing in 3 marathons on 3 different continents.

Since he’s in such good form, Richard plans on coming to South Africa to compete in the Comrades up run, and I’m sure he’d do even better than last year. I just read on Runner’s World SA’s site that he’s looking for a sponsor for the air fare. So you’re in the position to do that, drop estienne@extrememarathons.com a mail and see if you can help out.

Also, check out Richard’s blog. Well worth a read.

Update: After checking the Comrades Entries, it seems Richard didn’t get the sponsorship he needed as he’s not entered. A pity.