You are standing on the start line in the early dawn, with 20 000 singing runners, waiting for the stirring Chariots of Fire theme music and the taped sound of a cockcrow to set you on your way. But this is not a tame city marathon, instead you are about to run the equivalent of back to back marathons, plus some change, on an absurdly hilly route. It is the Comrades marathon in South Africa, in June every year. 

The Comrades marathon is the largest ultra marathon in the world, with a field of more than 20 000 runners. The first Comrades marathon was run back in 1921, with distances varying between 85-91 km each year. It is run in alternate directions each year between the port city of Durban and the inland city of Pietermaritzburg. The run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg is known as the UP run, and the run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban is the DOWN run. Both directions have huge climbs, and you can still expect plenty of climbs on the Down run. 

Perhaps one of the most common mistakes, that I see as a coach, is a lack of planning by novices, with many unsure of what is needed to run it.

 Don’t be offended by the term novice, as it is purely a term used for those who have yet to run their first Comrades. Comrades novices vary from runners with little running experience, to elite marathoners tackling this particular race for the first time.  

The first thing to determine is whether you are fast enough to run the qualifying marathon, and your average pace needed to finish the Comrades. The cut-off time for the Comrades is 12 hours, so we can plan for  11 hours 59 minutes. I am using the slowest times for qualifying and for beating the cut-off gun, and hopefully you are faster.

Runners need to run a qualifying marathon in under 4 hours 50 minutes, and this can be done between September 1 and the first weekend in May. Experienced runners often do an early qualifier in October or November, but few novices are able to do this. 

To run a marathon in 4 hours 49 minutes you need to run the marathon at an average pace of 6.51 min/km or 11.02 min/mile.

It is important to determine whether you are able to run a marathon under 4 hours 50 minutes, as getting under this mark is often a problem for new novices. 

A good way to determine this is to do races of shorter distances, and times on these can be extrapolated to give you an idea of what you would run in a marathon. For a 4 hours 49 minutes marathon you need to be capable of running any of the following times:

• 5km in 30:40

• 10 km in 1hr 03 minutes

• Half marathon in 2hrs 21 min

These times don’t need to be set when you start training, but you should be capable of running them in the last few weeks before a marathon. The longer the distance, the more effective it is for predicting your possible marathon time, with 10 km more accurate than 5 km, and 21 km  more accurate than 10 km.

The average pace for the Comrades cut-off varies, depending on the exact distance. But if we use 88 km, then your average pace needed to finish under 12 hours is 8.10 min/km or 13.08 min/mile. This may sound slow, but keep in mind that there will be times when you walk and will lose time. Your actual running pace is therefore a bit faster than this.

• In the next 101 series, I will write about the  marathon qualifier, when to do it and how to plan for it