Comrades Supplement Comrades Training and Info Guide, January 2016 | Page 16

TRAINING PROGRAMMES

SUB-12:00

FINISHER’S PROGRAMME
FOR A VIC CLAPHAM MEDAL
WHO SHOULD FOLLOW
THIS PROGRAMME?

• Comrades finishers who have run
between 11 and 12 hours.
• Comrades novices who can run a half
marathon in close to 2 hours 30.
• Comrades novices who have come
close to/or have broken 5 hours for a
marathon.
• Anyone who wants to start running.

DO NOT follow other programmes for faster medals thinking that the
extra mileage will guarantee a finish. The biggest single threat to you
finishing Comrades is getting injured, so place a premium on recovery
and ensuring this through following the appropriately designed
programme for you.

T

he second part of your Comrades Journey starts now, as you should have been building a solid foundation of mileage in the last few months
and improving your half marathon speed. Some of you may have been ready to run a marathon in November or December 2015, while
many of you still need to qualify. The principles of this programme remain the same: To finish Comrades you must build up slowly, become
consistent and remain healthy and injury-free.
This programme is time-based, so people of more experience and greater running ability will get relatively more out of the programme and
progress faster. Time-based programmes also prevent you from settling on a route that you need to run faster every time you do it. It is easier to
maintain discipline and run easy on the easy days. I must again emphasise here that being injury-free and consistent in your training is the key to a
successful race – easy days are there to ensure full recovery, so you can get the most out of every day’s training.
The aim is to be capable of running a sub-5:00 marathon before Comrades. We will aim to qualify in February, but you will ]