Training
My training plan was developed by my friend and coach Mary Holt-Wilson of TriMoxie. She blended the plan from Hal Higdon that I used when I ran the Rocky Raccoon 50-mile trail run in 2006 with the official one from the Comrades web site, and added her own ideas to create one that suited me and my schedule. The primary focus was using back-to-back long runs on the weekend to build endurance and get me used too running on tired legs. Mileage built from 40 miles a week for most of January, February and March to 50-55 miles a week in April and early May, with the long runs typically 2.5-3.5 hours on Friday and 2-3 hours on Saturday. My peak long run week was the first week of May and culminated with 2 hours on Thursday and 4 hours on Friday. Monday and Wednesday were usually easy runs of an hour or so, Tuesday was up to an hour and a half including 30-40 minutes of hill repeats, and Sunday and Thursday were rest days.
Three races formed an important part of my training. First up was the Dubai marathon in January. I used that as my official qualifier for Comrades (everyone must run a marathon under five hours in order to be an official Comrades entrant), and while I didn't hit the 3:45 I was hoping for, my time of 4:05 is still pretty good. Next up was the Wadi Bih 50k run in early February, 25 km up a mountain in Oman and then back down. Great practice for fueling, running on rolling terrain, and climbing and ascending steep hills, not to mention getting accustomed to running long distances. The third race was a 50k night race here in Doha in early March. It was 10 laps of a 5 km loop on cobblestones, only good for fueling, mental toughness, and running long distances when tired, which, really, are things you need to be good at when doing something like Comrades.
My monthly mileage was:
Jan - 128
Feb - 105
Mar - 143 (including ten days of no running while on vacation)
Apr - 205
May - 146
My training plan was developed by my friend and coach Mary Holt-Wilson of TriMoxie. She blended the plan from Hal Higdon that I used when I ran the Rocky Raccoon 50-mile trail run in 2006 with the official one from the Comrades web site, and added her own ideas to create one that suited me and my schedule. The primary focus was using back-to-back long runs on the weekend to build endurance and get me used too running on tired legs. Mileage built from 40 miles a week for most of January, February and March to 50-55 miles a week in April and early May, with the long runs typically 2.5-3.5 hours on Friday and 2-3 hours on Saturday. My peak long run week was the first week of May and culminated with 2 hours on Thursday and 4 hours on Friday. Monday and Wednesday were usually easy runs of an hour or so, Tuesday was up to an hour and a half including 30-40 minutes of hill repeats, and Sunday and Thursday were rest days.
Three races formed an important part of my training. First up was the Dubai marathon in January. I used that as my official qualifier for Comrades (everyone must run a marathon under five hours in order to be an official Comrades entrant), and while I didn't hit the 3:45 I was hoping for, my time of 4:05 is still pretty good. Next up was the Wadi Bih 50k run in early February, 25 km up a mountain in Oman and then back down. Great practice for fueling, running on rolling terrain, and climbing and ascending steep hills, not to mention getting accustomed to running long distances. The third race was a 50k night race here in Doha in early March. It was 10 laps of a 5 km loop on cobblestones, only good for fueling, mental toughness, and running long distances when tired, which, really, are things you need to be good at when doing something like Comrades.
My monthly mileage was:
Jan - 128
Feb - 105
Mar - 143 (including ten days of no running while on vacation)
Apr - 205
May - 146
Another key component of my training was yoga. I took classes several times a week,
the most important ones of which were my wife Heather's on Monday and Wednesday
nights. She develops a new lesson plan for each class and always incorporates a lot
of core work and hip flexibility/stretching poses, two things that were absolutely
critical for me a) getting to the starting line injury-free, and b) getting across
the finish line without having that feeling of total exhaustion, the one that comes
when your core gets overworked and tired, at any point during the race.
Pacing
My plan for the race was pretty simple: run at a comfortable pace whenever possible, walk or power walk the steeper hills when necessary, and be gentle on the downhills to protect my quads for later. The plan worked beyond my wildest dreams. I never felt exhausted, never hit the kind of low points that I did during Two Oceans last year, and ran a very strong second half of the race. Here are my placings at the timing mats during the race. I'm thrilled with how steady I stayed while much of the field was slowing down around me. Nice to see that I ran all of the second half intervals faster than the many of the people who finished in front of me. Being conservative at the beginning paid huge dividends at the end. I'm also extremely proud of the basically even split for the race. 5:17 for the first half and 5:23 for the second is pretty damn good. Most of those 426 people I passed in the last 7 km were in the 11-hour bus.
My plan for the race was pretty simple: run at a comfortable pace whenever possible, walk or power walk the steeper hills when necessary, and be gentle on the downhills to protect my quads for later. The plan worked beyond my wildest dreams. I never felt exhausted, never hit the kind of low points that I did during Two Oceans last year, and ran a very strong second half of the race. Here are my placings at the timing mats during the race. I'm thrilled with how steady I stayed while much of the field was slowing down around me. Nice to see that I ran all of the second half intervals faster than the many of the people who finished in front of me. Being conservative at the beginning paid huge dividends at the end. I'm also extremely proud of the basically even split for the race. 5:17 for the first half and 5:23 for the second is pretty damn good. Most of those 426 people I passed in the last 7 km were in the 11-hour bus.
| location | time | speed | o/a | sex | cat | split | speed | o/a | sex | cat | time of day |
| 17,50 km Lion Park | 2:00:18 | 6:53 min/km | 8128 | 7158 | 2639 | 2:00:18 | 6:53 min/km | 8263 | 7265 | 2680 | 07:30:19 |
| 44,97 km Halfway | 5:17:23 | 7:04 min/km | 8754 | 7530 | 2770 | 3:17:06 | 7:11 min/km | 9181 | 7716 | 2819 | 10:47:24 |
| 58,27 km Winston Park | 6:58:07 | 7:11 min/km | 7786 | 6679 | 2452 | 1:40:44 | 7:35 min/km | 5628 | 4710 | 1718 | 12:28:07 |
| 71,00 km Cowies Hill | 8:25:30 | 7:08 min/km | 6797 | 5837 | 2130 | 1:27:24 | 6:52 min/km | 3946 | 3356 | 1201 | 13:55:31 |
| 82,28 km Mayville | 9:52:01 | 7:12 min/km | 6414 | 5471 | 2020 | 1:26:31 | 7:41 min/km | 4645 | 3803 | 1421 | 15:22:01 |
| 89,28 km Durban | 10:40:14 | 7:11 min/km | 5988 | 5113 | 1899 | 48:14 | 6:54 min/km | 3677 | 3087 | 1149 | 16:10:15 |
Fueling
I began to focus on my fueling a week before the race, slowly reducing my intake of the spicy foods I love to eat and replacing them with bland and easy to digest carbs. Friday was a big breakfast after our easy morning run; chicken enchilada and rice for lunch; Italian for dinner (foccacia, calimari, ham, pasta, pesto, etc.).
Saturday - huge breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast. Light-ish dinner of pasta and potatoes. Lots of water and Powerade all day. Two tablets of high-test Imodium in the latter half of the day.
Sunday - Clif bar and half a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast at 3am, along with one last Imodium. I sipped Powerade until getting in the shuttle at 4. I started out with a gel and a salt tab every hour. 1-2 sachets of water at each water stop starting around 10-15 km. Only 1-2 sachets of Energade the whole race (it’s pretty foul compared to Powerade and Gatorade). I grabbed salted potatoes whenever I found them being offered by the aid stations or by the spectators along the route. 2-3 water sachets per water stop the second half of the race (stops along the entire route were ~2 km apart). I took another salt tab and a gel or 3 bloks if an hour had gone by without any potatoes. I had to stop to pee twice (10-15 km in and maybe 70 km in) and use the porta-potty once (at 30 km or so). Along with my conservative pacing strategy, my fueling plan helped keep me strong through the end of the race. I was tired, of course, but never felt like I had run out of energy in my body, mind, or legs.
I began to focus on my fueling a week before the race, slowly reducing my intake of the spicy foods I love to eat and replacing them with bland and easy to digest carbs. Friday was a big breakfast after our easy morning run; chicken enchilada and rice for lunch; Italian for dinner (foccacia, calimari, ham, pasta, pesto, etc.).
Saturday - huge breakfast of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and toast. Light-ish dinner of pasta and potatoes. Lots of water and Powerade all day. Two tablets of high-test Imodium in the latter half of the day.
Sunday - Clif bar and half a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast at 3am, along with one last Imodium. I sipped Powerade until getting in the shuttle at 4. I started out with a gel and a salt tab every hour. 1-2 sachets of water at each water stop starting around 10-15 km. Only 1-2 sachets of Energade the whole race (it’s pretty foul compared to Powerade and Gatorade). I grabbed salted potatoes whenever I found them being offered by the aid stations or by the spectators along the route. 2-3 water sachets per water stop the second half of the race (stops along the entire route were ~2 km apart). I took another salt tab and a gel or 3 bloks if an hour had gone by without any potatoes. I had to stop to pee twice (10-15 km in and maybe 70 km in) and use the porta-potty once (at 30 km or so). Along with my conservative pacing strategy, my fueling plan helped keep me strong through the end of the race. I was tired, of course, but never felt like I had run out of energy in my body, mind, or legs.
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