The  good news for runners that may have missed training early in the year, is that the big build up for the Comrades marathon begins in March, and there is still time to build endurance and get strong for this iconic ultra-marathon.

The Comrades marathon training phase is roughly two months, from the beginning of March to the beginning of May.  It is this high mileage phase, with the key long runs, that will determine how well you run at the Comrades marathon.  

Ideally by early March, you should have already run your qualifier marathon, so that you can focus on your buildup for the Comrades marathon. If you haven’t qualified yet, you are behind the curve, but all is not lost. You could still qualify by the end of March, but putting in solid training in March is important.

 If you plan to only do your marathon qualifier just before the cut-off date on May 4, you have missed the boat, and should rather focus on next year’s Comrades marathon. Next year’s Comrades marathon will be the 100th running of this race, and very special.

Structure for Comrades marathon training phase

• Early March – early May: Solid mileage, with no racing and no speed work. In this time you should ideally run three ultras, doing a 50km, a 56km and a 60km. 
• Early May – until Comrades: After the big 60km run, you will start with your gradual taper, reducing your weekly mileages over a period of 5-6 weeks. In this phase, you start doing some speed and hill sessions to help bring you to a peak. 

I think of this as three phases, with the first phase being from the beginning of March until early April. In this phase you do your 50km long run in the middle of March, and your 56km long run early to the middle of April. For those doing the 56km Two Oceans ultra marathon on April 11, the best weekend for the 50km is March 21/22, as that is three weeks before the Two Oceans. 

The second phase is then after the 56km and up to the 60km at the beginning of May. In this phase, the mileage ramps up a bit with the midweek, Wednesday runs becoming longer. This is the last and highest mileage phase in your Comrades build up. 

Use a training cycle for Comrades marathon

Few runners can cope with two months of high mileage training, and I like to use a 3-week training cycle, where possible, to build in some recovery. With this cycle, every third or fourth week, there is an easier recovery week, which I call a “pullback/recovery” week. 

Since the big runs of 50km, 56km and 60km are the toughest, it makes sense to make the pullback recovery week after each such ultra. This means that your weekly mileages will fluctuate, going up and then down, and that is good.

A mistake that runners often do, is to try maintain a certain weekly mileage throughout the training. This leads to accumulated fatigue over a period of time, and gradually a runner breaks down. You can think of the pullback/recovery weeks as a safety valve to help prevent you overdoing it with the training. Runners that are fixated on logging certain mileages, are the ones that are at the greatest risk of overdoing it.

How to bounce back when fatigued

At some stage in this high mileage phase for the Comrades marathon, you will experience more than the usual fatigue. While some fatigue is normal, at times like this it is worth taking a two-day rest. It takes 48hrs for our glycogen levels to restore, and the 48 hours also helps with muscle recovery. You can use a recovery drink in this time to help boost your glycogen stores. A recovery drink is 2/3 carbohydrates and 1/3 protein. This helps both for regaining energy levels, and rebuilding muscle. 

Injuries

When training hard, there is always a risk of developing an injury. The best is to act quickly, and not just hang on grimly, hoping that the injury will miraculously clear up. Start with a two-day rest as mentioned above, but also ice the injured spot twice a day (maximum of 20 minutes at a time). After the 48 hours, you can add some massage and stretching. If the pain persists, continue to rest and get to a physio. 

How to use key sessions 

Instead of being fixated on your weekly mileages, it is better to think in terms of your key sessions. These sessions are the most important, and it is these sessions that will determine how well you run. In this high mileage phase you will have two key sessions each week. These are the weekend long run and the midweek long run.

Key session One – the long run

Key session one is your weekend long run, as it is the weekend long runs that are the most important. The golden rule is that the lower your weekly mileages, the more important your long runs become. This is because it is the long runs that will get you safely through to the finish line of the Comrades marathon. 

Some runners will have heard others say that long runs are not important for the Comrades marathon, But this is misleading, as this only applies to elite runners, who will be doing around 180-220km a week in their peak training for the Comrades marathon. This means that elite runners are already building huge endurance through the week, making the long runs less important. But few runners can do these mileages, and it isn’t advisable to try do such mileages unless you are an elite runner. Most club runners will be doing less than half those weekly mileages, and this means that the long runs become extremely important.

Ideally you want to space the three ultras of 50km, 56km and 60km, about three weeks apart. The last 60km long run should be 5-6 weeks before the Comrades marathon. This means that the 50km run should ideally be around the middle of March, the 56km early to middle of April, and the 60km early May.

Perhaps one of the biggest dangers for runners is running the long runs too fast. It is an easy trap to fall into, and one that I have been guilty of when I was young and training hard. It is a temporary confidence boost, but damaging to our legs. 

The aim with the long run is to get good time on your legs, with as little damage as possible to your legs – Coach Neville

Key session two – the midweek long run

The midweek long run, typically on a Wednesday, can be done on a hilly route. The idea is to replicate the race to a certain extent. Stronger runners can do this run at their Comrades race pace or near their race pace. It is a good idea to try include some long hills in this run. 

The distance will vary, depending on how strong a runner is, and on their time available as these runs are time consuming.  The minimum distance in the first phase through March to middle of  April is 15km for slow runners, and 20-25km for stronger runners. I used to do 30km midweek runs, but most runners would find that too far. The key is to think of the long run in terms of time spent on your legs. The ideal amount of time for the midweek long run is about 2hrs. Since I was doing my 30km midweek long runs at 4min/km, I was hitting the right time target.  

In the second phase after the 56km long run, those runners that were doing 15km midweek runs, can increase it to 20km. Those that were doing 20km, can increase it to 25km.

Runner that struggle with time constraints can split the run into two sessions, perhaps 12km in the morning and 8km in the evening for a 20km total for the day. This isn’t as effective as a single 20km run, but it is still good training.

Peak and taper for the Comrades marathon

With the big mileages and long runs done, it is time for the final phase in your training. In this phase you will start with a gradual taper in mileage and add some speed and hill work to your training. The combination of lower mileage and quality sessions will bring you to your peak for the Comrades marathon.

The week after your 60km run, will be an easy pull/back recovery week. You will then still have 4-5 weeks to sharpen for the Comrades marathon. You only need 3-4 weeks of quality to see the results, as you will have come off the high mileage phase, which is essentially huge base training. 

The ideal days for the quality sessions are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with one session being speed work, and the other being hill work.

Speed sessions

At this stage of the training,  longer intervals such as 800m-1km for stronger runners work well, and you can do 3-5 of them in a session at 5-10km race pace with slow jog recoveries of about 90 seconds. A  great session for runners of all abilities, especially slower runners, is the 75/45 session

For the intervals, try pick a flattish and safe road or grass track. First do a warm up jog of about 2km and some stretching. With these intervals there is no need to max out to see how fast you can run. It is safer to do the sessions slightly slower than you think that you can, to reduce the chance of injury. You could do these at about 80% of your usual interval effort, and the benefit is still excellent as it will help to improve your pace and bring you to a peak

Hill sessions

For the hill sessions, you can use hills of 300-400m and do 8-10 of then at a steady hard pace, and then jog slowly down each time. Although the Comrades hills are long climbs, I don’t recommend doing long hill repeats of 1km, as the pace and intensity for most runners is too slow on such long hills. The recovery jogs going back down such long hills also take too much time.  It is however, important to include such long hills on your midweek long runs and your weekend long runs to get used to such hills.

For the hill repeat sessions, you want to be able to maintain a hard pace to the top, and using a shorter hill also means that you can pick a steeper hill,. The short, but steep hills of 300-400m are great for building leg strength. This session also doubles as a V02 max session as your heart rate will be similar to when doing the speed sessions. Once again, as with the speed intervals, it is wise not to max out on effort and rather aim for 80% of the effort that you would usually use. 

The final week of the Comrades marathon

The week of the Comrades is a fine balance between doing too little, and doing too much. If you do nothing all week, your legs will stiffen up and you will feel sluggish for a while in the race. If you do too much, you risk going into the race on tired legs. 

This is the programme that I use for my runners for the last week:

• Monday – Rest day
• Tuesday – light speed (4 x 75/45 intervals for strong runners, easy 5km for others)
• Wednesday – 5km easy
• Thursday – rest
• Friday – rest
• Saturday – easy 15 min jog to loosen up or rest if tired
• Sunday – Comrades

Keep your dream alive and stay motivated

It is is normal to at times lose motivation and focus. It helps having a very good reason for wanting to run the Comrades marathon. If your reason is just for bragging rights in the pub, it probably won’t be sufficient reason to get you out of bed for yet another run in the early morning darkness. 

It helps mixing with other runners that are also training for Comrades marathon, as you feed off the energy and excitement. Runners in South Africa have an advantage with this, as the club vibe here in building up for this race is amazing. If you are in another country, then try get on to Comrades chat groups, watch clips of previous races on YouTube etc. 

Getting to the start line is the hardest part, and then you can think of running the race as your reward. Good luck!