Category: 5.Training
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Comrades 2013 – Physical overview
Long enough ago … I ran 11 Comrades, one after the other, got sick, got better and a medal a couple years later then stopped for too many years. So this is a kind of second time around and definitely starting over. My record for Comrades Two – two Vic Clapham medals, one DNS and one…
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Rugby and running
One of the by-products of rugby is the recovery massage practice. The players get battered and bruised in game, get fixed up so that they can get battered again the next weekend. They sit in an ice bath. Specialists dig deep into their bruises. Getting fixed is almost as tough as the playing. I got a…
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2013 – a last 10km
A last 10 km run 8 days before the run, on the Table Mountain road above the city centre. A good easy send off with a deeply etched memory. Except that I probably spent as much time taking pics, bathing in the marvel and sharing it with mountain bikes who were equally enthralled. So…
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Engaging your mind 3: Toughness
An exercise to get your mind right for the Comrades Marathon Accept that its going to get tough out there. It is going to get tough. Accept that. Facing up to and going through the effort is what ultra-running and Comrades is about. Unless you run way behind what you could be doing, it’s unlikely…
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Engaging your mind 2: Fear
Another exercise to get your mind right for the Comrades Marathon Write down the things that worry you. List them. Externalise them. Get them out of you. That way they don’t gnaw at, give you sleepless nights, undermine you. Then take time to understand them. Fears are not a sign of a moral failing, or…
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Engaging your mind
An exercise to get your mind right for the Comrades Marathon Visualisation – making it concrete Get a profile or map of the route. You can look at a the small one on the the official Comrades website http://www.comrades.com/Route/Route-Map.aspx or a more detailed one at mapmyrun.com at http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/2640629. You also can rely on your memory if you’ve run it…
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2013 Taper day 9
Staleness Woke up easily for my run but felt stale and uninspired. Unusual. I didn’t look forward to running as I normally do. I worked through whether I have been running too much. not really. The alternative of going to the gym and cycling a bit, or doing the circuit didn’t inspire me either. When…
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Notes from 1946
Notes from 1946 For 6 years through the World War II years, the Comrades Marathon wasn’t run. In 1946 it started again with a field of 22 of which 8 finished. Winner in a time of 7:02:40 was Bill Cochrane, who had also won the 1935 run. Morris Alexander in his book The Comrades Story…
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Fear
You can call it Fear. It’s more. It’s the real you, the you that has to do the hard miles, asking the ego-you that one that likes to talk and dream and take chances: Are you doing the right things now? Do you have the right run-day plan? Can you handle a hilly 87 km…
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2013 Taper – 3
Tapering – tweaking the power Day 1 rest Day 2 easy 8 km (mapmyrun.com says its 8.72) Day 3 the same 8 km. This time pushing harder in the last 3.5 km, surging on the 6 little hills, easy on the 30-50 m between. Not too much but faster than yesterday. 1 min 20 faster…