Comrades Training - June 2010

Watching the Comrades 2010 was an inspiration.  I was overjoyed to see so many local South African runners doing so well. In fact, in the men's race, there were eight South Africans in the top 10!  This hasn't happened for many years.  I'm sure many a novice runner will be inspired by this and begin lacing up their running shoes after watching this year's event on the TV.

In fact, that's how I started training for my first Comrades Marathon way back in 1977, while I was in my third year of Physiotherapy studies.  In those days there was no such thing as 12 hours of live broadcasting. All there was, was a 1 hour highlighted package of the Comrades, screened three weeks after the race!  I remember it so clearly. I sat down to watch the TV while eating dinner one evening in June, and they happened to show a programme on a marathon called the Comrades Marathon, an event I had never heard about.

At the time I had been doing Karate a few times a week but felt hampered by the restraints of the sport.  I felt I needed a sport I could enjoy more and do at my own pace, in my own time.  As I watched the event, (which by the way was won by Alan Robb) I was mesmerised.  This was exactly the kind of sport I was looking for.  I could be free to do "my own thing", without a regimented routine.  I could run whenever I felt like it, and at whatever pace I could manage.

I told my flat mate, when the programme ended, that this is what I wanted to do, and announced to him that I had just made up my mind that I wanted to run the Comrades Marathon the following year.  He nearly fell off his chair he was laughing so much.  To show him how serious I was, I decided to start training that very night!  I waited till 11.30 pm for my supper to digest, and making sure it was still this side of midnight, I found an old pair of squash shorts and squash shoes and set out to do my first run.

I was living in Yeoville at the time, and ran from Hunter street all the way down to the Wilds, which I later measured to be 1 km.  Then I struggled, run/walking,  all the way back up the hill to my flat.  I was exhausted.  But I had kept to my word and had made a start on my quest to run the Comrades of 1978.

The next day, I doubled the distance and ran 4 km.  I was then really exhausted and simply couldn't run for three or four days.  A week or two later, I asked my mother to drop me off at the Starlight Drive-in, which was a distance of 12 km away from our home in Krugersdorp.  She asked me how I was going to get home!  She thought I had completely lost it when I told her I intended running back home.

A few weeks later, a few friends asked me to join them running in a fun run around the Botanical gardens in Johannesburg.  It was advertised as a 12 km run, but when we arrived we found out it was actually 16 km!  So we ran it anyway.

 My goal for the year was to run the Johannesburg City 25 km run, a four lapper through the streets of down town Johannesburg.  I finished the race and was very proud of myself. I then stopped running for a month due to studying for, and writing third year Varsity exams.

At the beginning of December, straight after exams had finished,  there was a half marathon, I wanted to run in.  I figured that if I could run 25 km without a problem, I could run 21 km as well.  I didn't factor in that I hadn't trained for over a month, and although I finished the race, I had picked up my first injury.  I had strained all the muscle attachments at the side of the hip.  I was unable to run for a few weeks, and thereafter, I set out every few days on a short run to gauge how the injury was healing.

In January, with the injury behind me, I built up my mileage steadily and ran first a 32 km race, and then a qualifying Marathon, the Vaal Marathon.  Unfortunately, I overdid the running somewhat, by doing "too much too soon", and developed my second injury, the dreaded shin splints. With no Physiotherapists able to treat running injuries at the time, (and being unable to treat myself as I was only a student Physiotherapist), I consulted the only "running doctor" at the time, Dr Ivan Cohen, the resident doctor at the Wits University campus.

I must mention here, that Dr Cohen was later to become the founder of  the "Run/Walk for Life" organisation, which was hugely responsible for getting many thousands of sedentary people to start running and walking.  I was later employed by Dr Cohen as the branch manager of the Sandton Branch of "Run/Walk for Life", which I managed for 11 years.  Run/Walk for Life exists to this day!  Dr Cohen sorted out my injury with two cortisone injections and I was officially back "on the road".

About a month before Comrades, I asked a few running friends if I could join them for their "long run" before Comrades.  I had no idea how far they were running, and didn't want to appear a bit of a sissy, so I didn't ask how far they were running.  After a few hours of running over numerous famous hills of Johannesburg like Northcliff Hill, Munro Drive and Silvia's Pass, I could see no end in sight, so I finally broke down and asked one of them how far we were running. ''60 Kay's', 'was the reply, to which I replied, "Ok, no problem''.  Of the six of us that started the run, three of us managed to finished the 60 km.

I then had one or two runs where I took my next door neighbour along, (he came with to Durban as my second), for him to practice seconding techniques, and I was now ready to run Comrades. In those days, there were under 3000 runners, and each runner could have his own car or motorbike following him along the route, with his seconds handing him drinks etc. along the way.  A year or two later, the roads became too congested and this system of personal seconding fell away. On the 31st May 1978, I ran the Comrades Marathon in a time of 10 hours 12 minutes.  I had achieved my goal!
 

The training programme presented in this column has been developed largely from my experiences of being a Comrades runner, a "Run/Walk for Life" Branch manager, and a Physiotherapist with a special interest in Comrades running injuries.

The programme has been finely tuned ever since 1999, when I first began this writing this column.  The main aim is to give advice to both the novice and the seasoned Comrades runner, on how best to prepare for the upcoming Comrades Marathon, in order to run a comfortable race while at the same time exposing yourself to the minimum risk of injury.  We look at the race calendar, and build our training around the races available.  Every single day's training is scheduled, on a month by month basis.  This month, we look at the training for the month of June 2010.

The programme focuses on two groups of runners.

1. The complete novice, who would like to start running from scratch, and run next year's Comrades marathon.

2. The so called Comrades "Veteran" runner, who has completed at least one Comrades Marathon, and who would like to finish next year's Comrades in a time of between 9 and 12 hours..

Initially the training for these two groups are two completely separate programmes. As the training for the novice catches up with that of the veteran, the training programmes become more similar, with the programmes eventually merging at the end of November, where the training for both novice and veteran is the same.

Let's take a look at the training programmes for June.

The Novice runner:
The training for the novice starts on the 1st June!!  That's only for the novices!  Those of you who have just run the Comrades should be resting for at least three to four weeks before putting on your running shoes again.

The novice should start out running for a set amount of minutes, as opposed to a given distance.  Running for just 10 minutes is sufficient for your first few runs.

Run slowly and comfortably, at a pace you feel you could maintain for the whole 10 minutes.  You should be able to comfortably talk to a fellow runner whilst running.

Goals for novice runners - June 2010:
1.  To put on your running shoes and go for your first run
2.  To run around a flat, grassy field, for just 10-15 minutes each time.
3.  Make a commitment to run regularly at least three times per week.
 

The Regular runner:
If you have just run this year's Comrades marathon, take a full three weeks to a month to rest up! Believe me, you have earned the rest and it will only do you good in the long term.  Then start up again with three runs of 5 km in the first week.

Goals for regular runners - June 2010:
1.  Rest!! You had a great Comrades and you deserve the "Rest".
2.  Recover!! Your body certainly needs the chance to recover.
3.  Start up with a few weeks of relaxed, easy running, but only after 3 - 4 weeks of complete rest.
 

Join me next month, where we take the training for the novice and veteran to the next level.

See you in July ......