Bruce Fordyce's Comrades Training Programme

Month 2 - February: CONSISTENT TRAINING WILL LEAD TO SUCCESS 

We are now at the most important time in our training build-up for the Comrades.
Hopefully we have all built a fairly firm foundation of consistent training and are now ready for the intense training phase. This lasts for eight to 10 weeks and allows us a generous taper, rest and recovery time for the Comrades Marathon in June.

If we are able to train well now, it is almost guaranteed that we will run will in the Comrades.
The training in the next two months builds the strength and conditioning to run well in June.
Many runners may be contemplating giving up the idea of Comrades because of a poor build-up in February and March, but this is a sad mistake. It really doesn’t matter if training for the last few weeks has been interrupted by injuries, illness or general slackness and lack of motivation. If we can train well now on a consistent basis we will be ready for race day.

The training now has to be regular and consistent and it takes a lot of discipline, especially as the nights grow darker and the days shorter and colder. Now we need to explain to our work colleagues and families that we may become boring. We will have to concentrate on training at the expense of a normal social life. We may also find ourselves irritable and constantly tired. Explain to the people around you that this is a short phase and that it ends at the end of May.

Most of the training we should be doing now will consist of LSD (Long Slow Distance running). We must concentrate on stamina and endurance, and on the weekends there will be the must long run. This most important of training sessions helps us to get used to the hours of running that will be required on the race day.

Long runs should be done very slowly, concentrating on the total time on our legs rather than on the speed of the run. It is also important to alternate long runs with shorter long runs so that the legs get some time to recover.

So the pattern of the weekend long runs would look something like this: 

Weekend 1	Weekend 2	Weekend 3	Weekend 4	Weekend 5	Weekend 6
50 km	30 km	60 km	30 km	50 km	30 km