Tag: comrades
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Quiet time
July is the a quiet running time for an ultimate Comrades runner. So I if I get out to run now it’s mostly for the joy of running, to maintain the aerobic capacity I built and to get my legs muscles to recover, deeply properly and bouncingly. I am also working on a solution to…
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After Comrades
Family down with coughs and sneezes. I fight off the creepy-crawlies, don’t run much because of the rain. It’s okay. I’m enjoying the Comrades recovery. I like walking around in my everyday world, with the fingers and ankles still tingling and sparkling with the got-the-medal fizz. How much poorer my life would be without it.
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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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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 4
Friday is normally my rest day. Plus this should have been a rest week, according my theory of having an easy week after 4 effort weeks. I missed yesterday because I just didn’t want to step into the dark, swirling, drenching rain. When it cleared and the sun came out, I nearly but not quite…
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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…
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The taper idea
The taper theory Having built distance into the legs and reaching the peak mileage week, the next and last phase of Comrades training is the taper. The idea of the taper is to lessen the weekly distance run (mostly the long run of the week) while increasing the intensity of running, so that the effort-demand stays…