Comrades Training - September 2010

Welcome to the September 2010 edition of the 2011 Comrades Marathon training programme.

In this column we look at the the day by day training necessary for next year's Comrades Marathon, giving realistict distances to run that will not only prepare you for Comrades, but at the same time reduce your risk of injury.

Let's first of all look at the training for the novice:

The Novice runner:

Last month, I detailed the highlights of every month, from the first month of training (i.e. June), all the way to the Comrades Marathon at the end of May next year.

This is what was said about the month of September:

Month 3.  September 2010

Goals:
    1. To maintain a steady mileage of 20 km per week.
    2. To complete your second ever 10 km  run.
    3. To enjoy each and every run, and to start believing that the 2011 Comrades marathon is a very real possibility.

Total weekly mileage: 18 km, 20 km, 20 km, 23 km

Total Monthly mileage: 81 km

Road race distances to be achieved: 1x10 km

Highlight of the month: To run another 10 km race
 

Let's look at this in greater detail:

Goals:

Having completed your first official 10 km race, you are now "on the road".  Whereas in August you were averaging between 15 km and 20 km, this month we would like to see you averaging around 20 km on a consistent basis.

Mentally you should now start believing in yourself, and that you are on the way to Durbs come end of May next year.

There is an excellent 10 km race mid month, the Citizen Gerald Fox Memorial 21.1 & 10 km, run from the Johannesburg Zoo.  It's a very popular race, and well timed coming 2 weeks after the Wanderers run at the end of August.

Total weekly mileage:

By running a mixture of 3 km and 5 km training runs you will very easily maintain the required 20 km per week.

You will be running 4 times a week except for the weekend of the 10 km race, where you can take a well earned rest the day before the race.

Total Monthly mileage:

Don't place too much emphasis on this monthly figure, as this can change depending on how the days fall out each month. Still, it gives you some kind of indication of the increase in mileage from the month before.

In August the exact mileage was 75 km, and in September it will be 86 km. That's a 15 percent increase, and is nice and slow, especially for this time of the year.

Road race distances to be achieved:

There is just the one race of 10 km, that of the Citizen Gerald Fox Memorial 21.1 & 10 km .  Other than that, there is a weekend where you do 5 km on the Saturday followed by 8 km on the Sunday.

That should be quite a weekend, as you will have run 13 km in two days.

Highlight of the month:

Running another 10 km race is most certainly the highlight of the month.

You will have gathered experience from your first outing last month, and hopefully you will enjoy this run even more than the last one.

See below for the breakdown of the daily training:
 
 

The Regular runner:

Goals for regular runners - September 2010:

    1. To get back into a regular running pattern after a long post Comrades lay-off.
    2. To maintain a steady 35 - 40 km per week.
    3. To complete two 10 km runs, a 15 km run, as well as a half marathon.

This year there are surprisingly few races to choose from in Gauteng.  If fact there are just three.

Having said that, these three races are particularly good races and are well worth running.

Running these races will give you a 15 km race, a 10 km race, and a half marathon.  If you do a 10 km training run in addition to these races, you have done sufficient training for the month

Try keeping your weekly mileage to between 35 - 40 km per week.

Have a look below:
 
 

For completeness I have listed below all the races in the Gauteng region during September 2010.

If you live outside the Gauteng region, simply substitute a race of similar distance. The weekly mileage will remain the same wherever you are in the country.
 
 
 

See you in October.....