right it is the top of the hour welcome
to the official comrade Marathon novice
webinar for 2023 how exciting is that we
are really on the cusp of what I call
comrades season which kicks off on the
1st of March so welcome to everybody
keep on popping in the chat where you
are from
just so everybody knows what's going on
Devlin is going to be moderating the
chat so if he
um yeah if you have any questions pop
them in there he's going to flag them
for me and we are going to do a full q a
at the end we've got a very full speaker
lineup so that does mean that we aren't
going to have time to answer our usual
questions while we're going
um but we've got some great speakers
very exciting and we want to get through
them as quickly as we can and then we'll
get to our usual full q a for at least
half an hour after the talk so let me
get into the presentation I am speaking
currently the name is Lindsey Perry I am
known as the official comrades Marathon
coach and I've been coaching at the top
end and across the entire field for the
past 15 years I've been to a couple of
Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games I
still have a marathon PB of 245 which
I'm trying to do something about in a
comrade it's PB of 7 hours and 11
minutes which really only means that I
don't have any friends right what you're
going to learn tonight
we're going to get you all the comrades
info that you need to know to get you
make sure that you've got your
qualifying
um information
Etc sorted out we're going to give you
all the information you need to finish
comrades I'm going to do a little sneaky
peek of the route
I'm going to talk you through how to
choose the right plan and very
importantly we are going to give you
some inspiration to help you get over
that finish line which the end of the
day is what all of this is about right
who are you going to be hearing from
tonight first up will be safiso and Goma
he is
um the guy who runs the social media
cards at comrades and is in charge of
the marketing he's going to run you
through all the information I'm going to
give you a slightly more detailed
introduction on everyone as they come up
Lindsay will be speaking tonight that's
me later on Nikki de Villiers dietitian
going to be talking us through recovery
nutrition and rice day nutrition Charlie
Hendrix who is head of athlete's success
at coach Perry and his strength and
conditioning specialist we'll be talking
about strength and conditioning and then
the surprise out the bag Adele brewdrack
ran her first comrades in 2022 First
South African lady across the line third
lady finisher overall and she is going
to talk to you about what it feels like
to be a novice so fantastic lineup and
very excited to get into it so first up
will be Sufism Goma he is the marketing
coordinator for comrades Marathon he has
been the MC of the stomp Awards in Cape
Town he is the assistant race director
for the pietermaritzburg city marathon
which is coming up very soon on the 20th
no it's been no 26th it's coming up on
the 26th and the race director for the
green trail run welcome to fisa and over
to you
thank you so much Lindsay uh welcome and
good evening to all our participants on
this uh webinar tonight
um to all our novices welcome to the
ultimate uh human race
I'm just gonna go through a a few things
um on the admin uh if I may ask uh
Lindsay to put up my presentation as I
go through so that everyone can see what
I'm uh I'm I'm going through
foreign
so we are sitting 109 days uh before the
race day the race is on the 11th of June
it will be a down run from pizza
maritzburg and uh it's gonna start at a
half past five and finishing in Durban
uh 12 hours later
um most people have been asking why are
we doing a double a double down run
um just to give everyone a a a a a an
understanding we we have traditionally
had our app runs and down and our
upright as
um even numbers and downright numbers or
so in 2010 as we were hosting the World
Cup we had to do the double up run so we
are doing the Double Down run now to put
the race uh the number of down runs and
upruns in sync
so uh without wasting more time
um uh what upcoming next for us at the
office uh we will be having the
substitution window period opening on
the 10th of March and closing on the
10th of April so for people who have
successfully entered on the race uh they
will have a period from the 10th of
March until 24 march to withdraw their
entries and then from 27 March until 10
April we will uh have an entry period
entries that will be available based on
how many people will throw their entries
they will be on first come first serve
basis so I want that to be you right
there on the 27th at 10 A.M as soon as
we open our entries just go to your
computers and make sure you secure your
entry or if you know anyone who won um
who hasn't entered would need to secure
an entry they must make sure that on the
this day they get their entry because
they will be selling very fast
uh the most important thing that I wanna
I wanted to run through today uh one is
to let everyone know that comrade
Marathon has five official Charities so
um
in 1996 comrade established a map
charity charity
Charities to assist different
organizations that are fighting social
um issues that we are facing in South
Africa so since its Inception over 62
million render has been raised there are
three components of the of I'm a pdpd or
how we assist our Charities one is race
for charity which I'm gonna explain
shortly and then another component is
donation with entries and last uh is the
Toyota win a car competition
um
so what we do is we as CMA we reserve
500 entries for runners who will raise
and who need to raise a minimum of 6 000
Rand by the second of May which will be
the period where we'll be
um taking uh we will need to have your
your your details on your profile
updated what assists you um these 500
Runners uh who have who are by the time
who would have raised uh six thousand
run will get a chance to improve their
seating to seepage it doesn't matter if
you are on on ghe if you have uh raised
a minimum of systems and run for our
Charities you will improve your city
into seepage
these are our official five Charities
Communications and Peter maritzburg
while trust which has two components
which is Wild Ocean and uh a white lands
we also have a Hillcrest age sensor uh
right against hunger as well as chalk
which is cancer which is Childhood
Cancer Foundation in South Africa
how to join the race for charity which
is uh the most uh important one the most
important facets of our uh fundraising
for our services you just need to go to
www.easerage.co.za or if you have the
comrades app you can go to the app and
then go to
um to your profile if you go to sign in
It's Gonna redirect you to easy right
same thing if you go to comrade's
website and go to sign in or login it's
gonna it's gonna redirect you to the
same screen that you are seeing here
which is is register.co.za say what you
do is you click on login you put in your
login details which for some strange
reasons most of you forget your
passwords I don't know how and why but
they're a matter for another day if you
have pockets and your password there is
an option to um to say you forgot your
password then you can reset your
password
uh once you
um uh once you press login you um you
put in your your credentials
um then when you are logged into your
profile this is the first screen that
you're gonna get into under your
dashboard if you click on edit profile
um or right where the blue Parts where
it says come with your reference and
then the name if you click there or on
edit it's gonna take you to the
following screen where it's gonna it's
gonna show you if you browse down uh
it's gonna show you where you can
actually sign up to join insurances uh
if you click on join join charity race
for charity uh there are four things
that are going to appear require of you
you just need to press yes uh before
it's you get there and then of course
it's gonna be on no if you say yes that
which means you are offering to response
for all Charities then it's going to ask
you for four things one is to is is to
put up your profile picture and select
the charity that you would like to raise
funds for amongst the five that I've
mentioned and then you can sell us a
little store why you are choosing this
charity and then how much you are
willing to raise for the charity once we
have done that I always advise that uh
people click yes
um so that we can be able to share their
contact details with the Charities so
that when Charities or a charity that we
are raising funds for uh would like to
contact you for anything or for
assistance they can be able to contact
you otherwise if you click on no we
can't share your contact details with
the charity that you are using plans for
um just like that I will click uh save
then you will be successfully entered
um uh um on the race for charity and in
10 minutes you will receive a link which
you will use to fundraise once we have
received the link you can if you go to
comrade's website under race for charity
uh if you type in your name right there
on that uh search button your name your
name will appear right on that list it's
gonna show you how much you have raised
and how much is your target
um as you can see the at the moment uh
we have a direct who's raising funds for
Hillcrest age sensor whose Target is 22
000. uh he is already sitting on twenty
thousand nine hundred I foresee uh
Theory keep going far beyond um his
Target that he says you can always
change your target
um to or increase your target once we
have reached it before the the second of
May
uh this so when someone would like to
donate for you um or they find your name
on the list uh this is how it will
appear it will be your profile picture
your name the name of the charity you're
raising funds for you can also share
your your link on Facebook uh or email
or Twitter uh to your followers uh or
else if someone is donating they press
on uh on donate spotting uh there are
various uh uh payments options that are
there that are offered um on the on the
platform they can pay with credit card
or instant uh instant payments or there
are barriers and they can see when they
click on donate now
the last place that of our raising funds
for charity is the winner Toyota win a
car competition so with this uh with
this on race day we will announce a
winner at quarter to five
p.m just before we close the race so to
get this ticket you can purchase a
Raffles tickets from each of our
Charities or login to comrade's website
under charity stuff you will see if you
click on win a car there are tickets
available online each ticket is fixed
around it doesn't matter where you are
in South Africa unfortunately to our
International
Runners they can't enter on this
competition because it's only for South
Africans as it will be uh difficult to
um to ship the car to outside of the
borders and there are a lot of
restrictions there so we run the
competition for only South Africans
foreign
that's it from my side what I can
request is uh let us all make sure that
we make every kilometer count by raising
funds for any one of our official
Charities please also follow us on our
on our socials
um as they appear that we are available
on Facebook Twitter Instagram Tick Tock
and also uh subscribe on our YouTube
channel
uh that's it for me if you have any
question I'll still be here I will be uh
copy your questions on the uh uh and
then I will answer them offline thank
you so much
karate hi thanks afisa and now we know
all things comrades and we know all
about the Charities right next up
comrades what it's all about ultimately
everyone on the call tonight you could
be one of those people that is what we
want
even better if we want you to be one of
the people inside the stadium and
finally this must be you we really want
everybody who lines up to get a
finisher's medal
we want everybody to finish that is
really the ultimate purpose of the
webinars and the road shows and why the
comrades Marathon Association put so
much effort into them for the next 12
weeks really what we want to prioritize
is being consistent okay consistency
trumps everything else we want to make
sure that we recover as well as we
possibly can and
we want to be doing strength training
okay and that is exactly why we've got
Vicky and Shona speaking tonight because
nutrition plays such an important role
in recovery and strength training is
going to play a vital part in keeping
you injury free and helping you perform
on the downright
consistency for me is really what trumps
all out so I'm going to dive into the
actual training after Nikki and
um Shona have spoken but the the real
secret to finishing comrades isn't the
total number of kilometers that you've
run by the end of the one march to
um the 10th of June training Block it's
how consistent consistently you will be
able to do that it's what you able to
achieve week after week and very
importantly month after month it doesn't
help you chasing a magic number that
you've got in your head and you break
down with injury and you miss three or
four weeks of training and then you come
back you try to rush into it now you're
panicking because you've missed training
um so yeah it's just really important
that what we after is to build up really
really slow from January to now we're
going to our Peak trainings but if you
missed steps then you do not want to
jump too big you want to rather you're
better off doing 40ks a week from now
until race day and being uninjured then
arriving at the start line engine I'm
going to share something with you just
now that will really drive that point
home but today's webinar is all about
giving you the tools to make sure that
your week after week month after month
gets taken care of one of the
cornerstones of making sure that you can
train and keep up the training you need
to train for comrades is recovery that
is basically split up
into
three key areas for me rest okay we
should all be taking rest days now rest
comes into two
um areas in the training okay the first
is that you need to have one to two rest
days built into every weekly cycle you
do not need to and nor should you be
training every single day so a minimum
of one rest day preferably two for most
of the athletes that are running
comrades is what you need to be able to
rejuvenate and for your body to absorb
the training repair the damage that's
caused by the training and make you a
stronger athlete that is how we get
fitter stronger and faster and the
second level of that rest is that you
need to build in some recovery Cycles
okay typically I use a three two one so
three weeks of building up in one week
of letting your body absorb that
training but two weeks of loading and
one week of recovery also works well and
then very importantly every time you do
something new and on this journey you're
going to do a lot of new things your
first marathon your first
ultra marathon and so on and every time
you do something new give your body some
rest I would go with at least three days
of the first Ultra be 10 to do a week
possibly look at doing some cross
trainings in other words rest from
running
raised from everything for three days
after three days instead of running come
back by doing some swimming doing some
cycling some non-impact exercise but
really give your body an opportunity to
recover from that new thing and to
absorb it and to get stronger for it if
you load the if you load the training
too quickly then you are going to have
um a problem sorry there was a question
just quickly flagged which is really
worth answering very quickly the session
is being recorded and it will be made
available to it'll be emailed to
everybody and it will be on the comrades
marathon website so everybody who
registered for the webinar will have
access to the webinar
um right moving on from rest the next
important thing is sleep in recovery now
when I talk about sleep I'm really
cognizant of the fact that not everybody
sleeps well or can get to sleep easily
but sleep is incredibly important for
recovery and so what I'm really asking
people to do is that during this period
these 12 weeks is to get it right more
than you don't get it right so we've got
a seven day week
try and really dial in for five days on
your sleep and it's not about being
perfect it's about being better than you
are right now okay again with sleep
there are three particular areas that I
like people to focus on the first and
probably most difficult is to get off
screens so if you can get off TV cell
phone tablet laptop
Etc get off screens for 13 minutes
before you go to bed that makes a huge
difference to How Deeply you sleep okay
that's really the the bottom line the
second aspect is getting into bed
earlier you you actually need to be
sleeping by 10 o'clock to get the full
recovery benefit of sleep so get the
full hormone release of testosterone and
growth hormone okay so wherever possible
try to get into bed before 10 o'clock
and then the third layer and aspect of
it is the darker your room the deeper
you'll sleep and it's linked to exactly
the same thing that that interferes with
your sleeping patterns when you're on a
phone too close to sleep when there's
red light blue light or any kind of
light or flashing cell phone or
something like that in your room when
you're sleeping your brain essentially
thinks that you are sleeping during the
day and that's why you don't go into as
deep asleep so those are your three
things if you can get those things
better not perfect but if you get them
better than you're doing now you're
going to improve the quality of the
sleep you're going to improve the
quality of your recovery and then the
final thing is nutrition now nutrition
is a is a talk all on its own and that
is exactly why Nikki is here to talk
about it but honestly
you've got sleep and nutrition are the
two bases of your triangle and the
better your sleep and nutrition are the
wider that base is and the higher your
Peak can go in training and the lower
your risk will be of injury the less
likely you are to get sick the more
likely you are to be consistent so
really this evening we are providing you
with literally the most important pieces
of information that you need for
improving so with that I did get through
my slides a little bit quicker so Nikki
that means you've got a bit more time to
emphasize a few things Nikki de Villiers
I've been working with her for many many
years okay she graduated as a dietitian
at the University of Pretoria and
completed a postgraduate diploma through
the international Olympic Committee and
a master's degree in diabetics she's
been working in the field of dietetics
for around 20 years and has been
concentrating on Sports Nutrition for
the last 14 years just like me she's
worked with plenty athletes that have
gone to multiple Olympic Games and she
consults for various PSL which are um
local football professional League
football teams professional Rugby teams
the comrades Marathon Association and
individual athletes of all levels so
without wasting any more time the floor
is yours
thanks so much Lindsay hello everyone I
hope everybody had
a meal otherwise this can make you
hungry all right so let's go in terms of
what could possibly go wrong if I do not
prepare my nutrition plan
one thing that you can run into trouble
with is dehydration and we're going to
talk a little bit about hydration we can
run out of energy
so usually excessive tiredness that can
be
what we call peripheral tightness that's
that feeling that everything in me wants
to go but I've got no legs and the other
one can be Central tiredness that is
where you definitely would ask yourself
somewhere through the race what am I
doing here and what am I giving up for
this and the last thing that can really
go wrong is gastrointestinal issues um
we want to sort that out before we get
there so I'm going to go through the
talk in terms of how to prepare your
fueling plan and then get to the
basically the basics of your recovery
just at the end of this okay so the
fundamentals of a proper fueling plan is
you need to be able to answer these
questions am I feel enough for my events
and a lot of people will say yes
and when I speak to them enough is the
little word that nobody knows when is
enough
um so we're gonna go and see if I can
put some numbers to that am I hydrated
enough for my event
um
yeah again we don't know what is enough
and unfortunately I can't give all of
you you know a Blanket's recommendation
yeah but definitely will give you some
ideas on what to think of and way to
search for answers if you think you are
not at the enough
um stage and then the very very
important thing is have I practice my
nutrition enough and I really want to
put emphasis on this that we start
practicing in terms of what we're going
to do on the day
um soon enough and that we do it often
enough so that your gut can get used to
what you gonna put into it on the day
okay so step one and all of this is we
need to start with a plan
um we also do acknowledge that plans can
go wrong so we also have to make sure
that we are flexible in the application
of this plan but whatever we write on
paper to start off with can be totally
different
um in terms of what we write on paper
today before we're gonna enter the race
so first of all get all the information
you need so get when the race starts get
how long before the time you're going to
have to be at the start
get what are the restaurants in the
vicinity where you're going to stay what
is on their menus and get temperature
closer to the time that you're going to
run in get all the information regarding
what is available on the road all those
kind of things is what you need to know
before you
you
um start with this building plan then
Define your targets and calculate your
needs I'm going to go through the
calculation of the needs with you
tonight
um but important to know that um
everybody's targets is different and I
will mention it as I go through in terms
of how you need to adjust so
um the targets will be different for
everyone out there and therefore
nutrition will be different and that's
why we can't give a blank of meal plan
on this forum for everybody to follow
the next thing is when should I start my
plan I think the sooner the better
because that will give you peace of mind
and it will give you lots of opportunity
to practice what you're going to do and
sort out all the needles there's a very
fine line between success and failure
especially in in these kind of ultra
stuff because we don't train these
things every weekend
so therefore it is really important to
to be vigilant and really train with it
to see what's going to work in a perfect
scenario we want to start eight to 12
weeks out making sure that we now go
through the phases that we decide
um in this eight to twelve weeks what
are we going to do
you know in the basically two days
beforehand what am I going to eat you
know what am I going to drink what is
working what is not working what are we
going to do the day before
um that's why all that information is so
important to to understand what will be
available and so forth the morning after
of the race and then during the race so
now is the time to start and figure all
these out and not only think about it
the week before
so you need to answer these three
questions for your nutrition plan what
will you eat and drink on the day before
what will you eat and drink on the
morning before you go in and what will
you and what and how often will you eat
and drink on the road whilst you're
doing this rice and this the the answers
to these questions needs to be what am I
doing now
um in terms of how you're going to
practice to make it stick and to make
sure that you've got the confidence that
whatever you do will work on the day
so just a little bit of an intro what
fuels the run and this is to get to
behind the method of the madness in
terms of what we say so if we look at
car versus fat and the whole fight of of
um should we eat more carbs or should we
eat more fat carbs will definitely win
especially if you are really trading
hard
um and especially For Speed so I will
get to that slide now but it basically
means that your carbohydrate and your
fat basically combines as fuel sources
but the one that's Limited in Supply is
the carbohydrate and the one that feels
higher intensity efforts is carbohydrate
now we are putting away that in ultra
marathon you will not be able to run at
a very high intensity this whole race
but it does definitely feel higher
intensity efforts as such
um the carbohydrate then is stored as
glycogen in the body the glycogen is
basically just the fuel tank where
carbohydrates is then sitting these fuel
tanks are really limited so we won't be
able to cover load and then think we've
got a whole tank available for the whole
race these glycogen stores are enough to
fill a run for about an hour and a half
depending on how hard you go higher
intensity office is shorter if you run a
very slow intensity maybe it will last
two two and a half hours but not much
more than that so therefore the
carbohydrate intake before and during
your race really can make a difference
in terms of how you're going to feel on
the road
so this is where I give you an
indication of what what is used as a
fuel tools don't worry too much about
all the blocks I want you to be able to
just identify for me and your as you
watch look at the screen on your left
hand side
um
um the low intensity moving up to high
intensity so the low intensity would
would indicate a very a walk or a very
slow Jog and the high intensity a very
fast run and there you will see when we
do a walk or very slow joke you will see
carbohydrate is only about 25 of the
fuel that you use so therefore if we're
going to go slow we really don't need to
over emphasize the intake of
carbohydrate the fat will make up 75 of
what the the fuel that's provided I
think most of us are not intentionally
gonna go into a race like the comrades
with this so maybe most of us will be
trying to get to a fast run and they're
the carbohydrate use is about 52 percent
and the set about the 48 of the mix
that's differ a little bit from person
to person in in terms of how you are
adapted and then if we run very very
fast you can see that carbohydrate now
makes up about 80 of the mix so very
high need for carbohydrate it means that
if these storage that we have is limited
then it means that we will run into
fatigue and as I say those fatigues are
the big glycogen stores those tanks the
big ones are in the muscle and the other
one is sits in the liver and therefore
we can experience these two types of
tiredness that I've mentioned so the one
is if the muscle glycogen is done and
you don't have any of those left that is
where as I said everything and you want
to go but you just don't have that gear
you will be able to continue in these
circumstances but you're going to make
use of predominantly fat as your fuel
source and if you're going to have to
decrease your intensity
if you run out of carbohydrate in the
liver that is where the blood glucose or
the blood sugar level drops that usually
we call Central fatigue so now the head
gets tired and you start with all that
negative talk you also often get blurry
eyes because your eyes is really
dependent on carbohydrate um as a fuel
source and then you also um get quite
shortness of breath because the red
blood cell also needs the carbohydrate
so that's more the the central fatigue
um doesn't matter if it's peripheral
central not a nice place to be at and
sometimes very difficult to get out of
this hole
um at that late stage as such
um okay so if we look then at the
carbohydrates so the main thing that we
want to try and achieve in the pre-race
meal is we want to make carb available
but the main problem of carb
availability and I think especially the
pre-raised meals in itself is I think
um or most of us has been in situations
where you're just so nervous that you
really cannot get food in and if I talk
about hours before the race you would
think this girl is quite crazy to think
that I'm going to eat four hours before
this race because most of these raises
obviously that you're doing now is in
the morning sorry I'm just I'm load
shedding so I'm just going to move a
light here
um but I don't think you need to see me
either
um so if we're then going to eat um four
hours before the race I think in
comrades you will be awake four hours
before and especially if you need to
travel or otherwise your nerves or
otherwise just getting
you know you're so excited getting to
the start but it means that if I eat
four hours before we eat quite a big
meal as we move closer to the race then
we eat smaller amounts so if you're
awake four hours before you eat a big
meal that can include fat it can include
protein but it's carb predominant with
other words we then eat four or five
slices of toast with maybe an egg or two
but very little fat in that meal and
because fat stays in the stomach for a
long time if you move closer three hours
before you eat less fat less of the
protein more of the carbohydrate and as
you move then closer we try and avoid
fat and
protein in those meals and we'd rather
make use of just the carbohydrate meal
to try and fuel
feel the rice
all right so um I will get to more
detail about that it's just in terms you
need to figure out what Now is working
for you so the carbohydrate sources if I
talk about carbohydrate Source always
make sure or think in your mind it can
either be a starch thing or a fruit
thing that's where we usually get most
of our carbohydrate from so it can be a
big bowl of Oats it can be a fruit salad
and yogurt it can be toast with jam it
can be toasted jam and banana a lot of
people will eat peanut butter and bread
with banana maybe a little bit of honey
and then the rest of the carbohydrate
can come through a drink that you're
drinking so either fruit juice or coffee
or tea or something that will make you
comfortable be careful of excessive
amounts of fiber if you're not used to
it the same with fruit so if your gut is
not used to fruit and all of a sudden on
the morning you eat a big heap of a
fruit salad there can be that your gut
is not used to this and that's why it's
important to now start training with
these principles or do you raise us with
these principles although as I said you
won't maybe be awake four hours before
your race is currently but try with a
little bit of the food you can always
increase the volumes later but try with
a little bit so if you're going to eat
oats eat two or three spoons of Oats see
how you feel see how it relieves and see
what the gut feels like
um so that is important in terms of
starting to eat before your races and
starting to eat before your runs that's
quite important
the next step in your calculation of
your fueling needs is then we move more
towards inside the races so usually yeah
when we talk about how much people need
the gender or the weight of somebody
doesn't matter so most of our guts are
the same the same length and absorb the
same amount
um so we can be a little bit more
generalized here but it depends mainly
on the duration of your activity so for
marathon and ultra marathon runners we
try to achieve an intake of 60 to 90
grams of carbohydrates per hour guys
this is a huge huge huge amount but then
it also depends on your goals so the
there's some of us that wants to run
this rate to compete doesn't matter not
necessary to win but to compete against
yourself or somebody else or previous
base time in this race
um so those people need to to try and
get to 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate
per hour where those of us that just
wants to complete this thing will be
there for a little bit longer period in
time and they will need to see if they
can get to 3 30 to 60 grams per hour I
will get the examples just now just
remember your number all right so those
of us completing or those that's very
inexperienced
um of taking carbohydrate on the road or
during your runs you try to stick to it
30 grand per hour and then you move up
to 60 and once you manage 60 you can do
one or two nineties and see how you feel
and get your sweet spot there but I
think for all of us the first goal is 30
and then moving to 60 grams an hour so
this will give you an indication here
you will see the longer I'm on the road
the more I will use carbohydrates or
right at the bottom you will see 60
Minutes 75 minutes two hours to an hour
three hours also taking consideration
that maybe the run that I run today is
an hour and a half but I'm training for
something that's definitely longer than
three hours and therefore I need to
maybe even if I don't need it for this
race I need to practice it to see how
I'm going to do in something that's
Ultra and so it is important not
necessary every single run of yours but
at least one to two runs to aggressively
feel as if you would run the ultra
um usually
we will then get to a 30 grand per hour
the carbohydrate type and I will go into
a little bit more detail just now but we
talk about the higher we go in
carbohydrate
um the more we need to use what we call
multiple transportable carbohydrates
which I will um explain in a minute
should I then take gels or drinks or
bars or chews doesn't really matter just
be practical so take or focus on
something that you will have available
that's the one thing remember you're
going to be out there for a very long
time so if you're going to feel your
whole race with bananas one banana is
about 20 grams of carbs so you're gonna
have to eat one and a half banana per
hour and you've got to say be out there
for 11 hours that's going to be a lot of
bananas that you have to carry so be
practical in your in your choices the
composition does matter so what what
else is in there so if I eat something
with excessive amounts of fat or
excessive amounts of protein that will
also take space
um in your stomach and the type of
carbohydrate or the type of sugar in
there needs to be something that you
trade with so it's important that you
practice with what what you will use on
race day so when should I take these
carbs if you in your training runs as
well as they remember we put preparing
for the race so we're preparing for
something big so start eating and
drinking early in most of your races
that you do currently it is important
because there will be a time in any kind
of race but especially in the Ultras
that you will not be able to eat and
drink much more and therefore if we did
a very good front part of the race we're
usually better in the back part if we
don't need to eat all that
um or if we if we can't get all the
carbohydrate in anymore so then we know
you've still got your glycogen tag
remember if you're going to eat under on
the road you're basically sparing your
tank your petrol tank you can kick into
it a little bit later when you're not
that Keen to eat anymore be consistent
with intake so it's really much much
better to eat small amounts over you
know two or three
um bites of carbohydrate or two or three
opportunities for intake per hour rather
than what you skip two or three hours
and then have to do a little bit of a
catch up with this so be consistent in
your intake and either time it so every
half an hour I take something or every
kilometer or three kilometers or five
kilometers so whatever is suitable for
you in terms of the value you can handle
be flexible so some days we will be
really good with this and other days not
um spoke to somebody just this week they
did erase what extreme heat and it was
really not that easy to get to the
amount of fuel that he needed because he
just wanted that fluid so he just wanted
the water without the sugar as such so
be flexible in terms of the plan but
this is something that you need to train
every day so this is the overview of
carbohydrates remember now we spoke
about 30 gram or 60 gram or 90 gram an
hour and this is the amount of food that
will get you to the 30 gram per hour so
this is our first Board of school so
this is the the first goal that we need
to
um get to so sports drink on average 400
to 500 mL of it will give you 30 grams
an hour or 30 grams of carbs so usually
if you're going to do all of your intake
of carbohydrate just through the drinks
and there is a little bit of a scale
that you maybe will run into over
hydration so I always advise people to
have a drink plus something to eat
rather than have everything as drinks
while some people can train just for
drinks and you can make your body used
to it so
um don't don't exclude that that
opportunity but
that will be then that you have to drink
400 to 500 most to get to your
carbohydrate need if you're going to eat
bananas one to one and a half banana
will give you 30 grams remember per hour
so think if you can eat one to one and a
half bananas per hour if that not you
can then obviously combine have 250 ml
of small strength and maybe half a
banana per hour so then say if you eat
on half an hour I drink 250 ml after
half an hour and eat the banana bin on
the hour gels one to one and a half gel
so gel carbohydrate content of agile is
about equal to that of a banana
um you need to train with gels and you
may need to make sure this is the
composition matters because a lot of the
journalists got other things in it we
get gels with caffeine in there to get
gels of guarana in it there's some
that's got a fat sauce in it so you need
to really make sure which ones is
suitable for you you can use choose this
is all these jelly sweets and those kind
of things there's six of those twos
usually will give you 30 grams of
carbohydrates and jelly beans about 15
jelly beans so that is quite a lot to
get through to get to 30 grams I don't
think anybody is going to count them and
I think later on in that race you're not
going to count anything except maybe
four kilometers but not jelly beans and
then the energy bar is about one to one
and a half bar
um the same as a gel so just think of
how compact this is but this is just a
few examples how you can get to it a lot
of people will also use raisins or dates
or fruitcake of some of other salt so
all of these potatoes oranges those kind
of things can all contribute to your
intake okay step three now you know your
carbohydrates you know you need to get
30 grams you did make it clear that I'm
gonna eat every half an hour or I'm
gonna have smaller amounts at 20 minutes
um or at every water table remember the
water tables and comrades is about two
and a half to three and a half
kilometers
um every two and a half to three and a
half kilometers so that's quite often
um so sometimes you will probably skip
some of the water tables in terms of
your fluids then step three is
dehydration can cause a decrease in
performance as you can see in the
illustration indicated here and
especially once we get to a three
percent
um dehydration that's where things can
go really wrong your fluid intake must
try and minimize
um dehydration but it's hardly
it's it's really not sensible to think
that your fluid intake will be enough to
match your sweat rate exactly
um so a little bit of weight loss is is
inevitable I think
um so we we really try not to
aggressively drink to not lose any
weight usually the suede rate is we
measure it against the the weight loss
um also don't confuse fluid and fuel
with each other so today if the day is
extremely hot which we hope we will we
will not get as it will be winter
um then you will probably be
um concentrating a lot more on the fluid
and not that much on the fuel where if
it's not a hot race especially if it's
very cold where we don't drink that much
we still have to get to our fuel needs
so that's why it's important to
understand that although we combined the
two it's not the same thing if I say
figure out your sweet right there are
ways in which we can do it so this is
basically your measure and this you need
to do maybe on a log sheet for some of
your runs that you're currently doing
keeping in mind the weather will be
totally different
um in terms of you know when when you
run cameras from where it is now but
it's still worthwhile to do these locks
to just get an indication of how much
your sweat so you take your weight loss
so the weight before minus the weight
after you run
um you take the volume that you've
consumed in fluids so say I've lost two
k's that will be two liters the volume
consumes say will be about a liter so
you this
um did that the the volume consumed from
the weight loss and then if you had any
urine loss any pit stops you need to add
that and that then all you divide
through the duration of the exercise
plan the duration of your exercise in
hours and then you will get how many
liters your sweat rate is per hour as I
said it will differ from day to day
because of weather humidity it will also
differ from day to day maybe because of
your hydration level but it will give
you indication if you're somebody that
should drink a liter an hour or somebody
that can get away with 300 miles per
hour and this is why it's so difficult
to give somebody an indication of how
much they need to drink is we don't know
everybody's individual sweat trade so if
you're not going to go through all this
trouble the the general or the blanket
advice would be drink according to
thirst but be very very sure that you
give
attention to when you're thirsty and get
too fluid because a lot of the times we
will be a little bit thirsty but we will
ignore that
um or you get that your stomach doesn't
feel that great so therefore I stop
drinking the fluid all right um so
that's why if you calculate your sweet
rate I think it really can contribute
quite a bit to your awareness of where
you should be in this
some thoughts on electrolytes
electrolytes currently are generally a
little bit overhyped um in a sense that
your body does have quite a bit of
electrolytes
um to do you can lose quite a bit and
the barriers have enough storage of it
the one thing so dehydration is often a
bigger issue than what a salt loss would
be as such but the one thing that we
know is if the fluid that you take
contains electrolytes especially salt
the retained you retain much better
after fluids it's not just the rush of
the fluid through the system so most of
the sports products are formulated with
a little bit of sodium in there so it's
often not a necessity that we have
additional salt tablets and all those
kind of things but make sure that yes if
you drink a small drink that it is one
containing a little bit of sodium so we
don't have extreme a lot of evidence
especially in Ultra endurance but it
seems that if I replace sodium it's not
necessarily going to increase your
performance you know in a direct way but
indirectly it will make you thirsty and
if you're thirsty you will drink more
water and the dehydration would be
better and that can benefit your race in
terms of
um the decrease then in the fatigue
Factor I've got an eye just a quick
slide here that will give you an
indication
so in this slide it gives it lists you
the the
micronutrients I want us to specially
pay attention to sodium right at the
bottom it gives you that the total
amount of sodium in the body so you will
see sodium is 65 grams it will give you
the amount of sodium in the blood is
about three to three point five grams in
any given time and in the sweet the
sodium that you lose is about half a
gram so therefore you can see there's
lots of sodium that the body can
replenish sodium with
um so electrolyte concentrations are
really always lower in the sweat than
what it is in the body and this is
necessary because this is supposed to
make us thirsty so this means that
there's more water loss than what there
is salt loss and therefore you don't
have to
rely on excessive electrolyte intake and
a normal sports drink of electrolytes
should be okay if you're not going to
over drink on that sports drink
because they before would then be you do
step one two and three and then you
write down your race protocol so now you
need to know
um the right products so the right
product is the right one for you so
don't listen to other people if you
experimented with whatever you need to
do do that
um so the live products what you need
for your view and your fluid and also
your preferences a lot of people don't
like excessively sweet things so a
potato with salt will suit them better
where other people don't want the
solidness of stuff therefore gel will
suit them better so make a plan write it
down what is practical for you and what
you can tolerate like the example I gave
you in that illustration that you
literally write it down and this is what
you try and taste every single time that
you're out there so that you know so try
and test it through all your long runs
but also try and test it through maybe
one or two of your intensity runs so at
least one twice in a week taste your
fuel fueling strategy by drinking and
eating as if you're gonna run the ultra
as such
and then practice practice so remember
the gut is highly adaptable it's like a
muscle so as you train your muscle you
need to train your gut if you train it
well with other words if you start eight
to twelve weeks before and you do some
of your runs with these fuels and fluids
you will improve gastric emptying this
is a huge one because somewhere in the
race you usually feel that everything is
accumulating in your stomach and you
can't get it out improve intestinal
absorption improve your stomach comfort
and you reduce them GI symptoms so use
the products once to twice a week
practice at high intensity to replace
the rice
fields and avoid something new on Rice
day avoid Expo Temptation on race day so
don't take something new that's there
the Expo increase your intake weekly as
I said so try to get to 30 then to 50
then to 60 and then move towards your
race day Target
and then my last slide is about recovery
so recovery after the race I'm not that
worried um I hope for all of you that
you can get to enough fuel and fluid
soon after the race but this is much
more for your running now as you do it
so remember you will get used to a 10k
run or 20K run and you would feel
nothing I don't need this please use the
recovery after every single training
that you've done get into the habit of
doing it and we usually concentrate on
refuel rehydrate and rebuild so in those
particular order of importance so the
reviewers get to a carbohydrate Source
within 30 minutes after you run if you
can this can be fruit it can be cereal
it can be toast it can be an energy bar
it can be the rest of your energy drink
that you didn't finish so any kind of
carbohydrate sauce would be good here
rehydrate make sure that you start
taking in liquids soon after the end of
your race or your training and the last
one is reboot that is where we basically
add the protein to that so that can be
milk which is usually a very good thing
to rebuild with or it can be an egg on
toast or cheese or peanut butter on a
toast so that will then revoke the
damage of the muscle all right thanks
you guys good luck for everybody out
there
um hope to see you soon
and really just work on it day by day by
day so that it can turn into a habit
thank you for the time
thanks so much Nikki that was great and
I think for me the real take-home
message there is that just like running
and training for comrades you need to
work on the nutrition so get your
nutrition plan in place now and work
towards it so yeah thanks very much next
up is strength training another key key
components to prepping for comrades on
um in June 11th of June so shiny
Hendricks up next he was the former head
of sports science at the University of
Pretoria she has a postgraduate degree
in sports science she has an MBA a
certified student
and conditioning specialist through the
NCSA in the USA she is also the creator
of the running through menopause
training framework she herself is a
runner and triathlete she has run New
York Berlin Amsterdam and Chicago she's
around four times two oceans and if I
would later she would run comrades so
that's coming soon but we we need her to
help us with sickening on the side of
the road for now
um she's done and she's done seven Half
Ironman distance Triathlon so welcome
China over to you
awesome thanks so much lens um yeah it's
good to be here and uh excuse me I'm I'm
struggling with a bit of a cup so if I
land up having a coughing foot so I'm
just going to take a sip of water but um
yeah I don't I I always feel a little
bit nervous about my talk because it's
always the one that no one wants to hear
right you guys have started writing or
you've been raining for a while and
you've now decided okay I'm gonna tackle
comrades and and now I'm here I'm
telling you you know Nikki's telling you
about eating we all enjoy eating but now
I'm telling you about it you're gonna
have to add some strength training into
into your plan and and it's really
because of this and I love this this um
this little meme because this is exactly
it because if we don't do any kind of
strength training or Mobility or
movement we'll end up looking like the
Tin Man and as and and we're Runners we
want to be running we don't necessarily
want to only be doing strength training
and so I'm going to tell you a little
bit why strength training is so
important and how and and how we can put
it or how you should be putting it into
your training plan so that you're
getting the best out of it so that
you're able to tackle comrades on the
day
so why strength training there's three
main reasons and I'm going to go into
each of these in in quite a bit of
detail so the first one is injury
prevention that's absolutely key
eccentric loading sounds like a big
fancy word I'll dive into what that is
uh in a little bit and then third uh
reason for strength training is that it
improves your performance all right so
injury prevention right so running is a
cyclic action right Rockford leopard
Rockford leopard is just a cyclic action
but it's a constant load on the same
muscles and Joints
um all the time and so we really have to
ensure that the muscles in the
musculoskeletal structures around those
joints are strong enough to sustain us
from the load of running right so
because it's a cyclic kind of action as
you're going through your comrades plan
and I'm sure you're already at fault as
well is that you know you're increasing
this volume over time and as we increase
that we have to ensure that our body has
the ability to to be able to sustain it
or help us maintain that load as we as
we continue to increase it
Lindsay mentioned it earlier but success
comes from consistency and so if you're
picking up an injury it doesn't need to
be something severe can be a niggle a
niggling pain that that takes you out of
a couple of sessions we don't want that
we want you to try and be as consistent
over this entire build up to the to race
day to ensure that that you get the best
performance that you can and and in
order to do that you need to not have
days where you off from training and one
of the ways of doing that is to ensure
that you're doing your strength training
to help that we prevent any of these
niggling pains and that sore knee that
then becomes a chronic issue and so you
want to make sure that you're ticking
every single block off right so you're
turning every single block green that
doesn't mean that every every day there
needs to be something one of those
blocks could be a rest session which is
really important as well but we want to
make sure that we have green all the way
across as opposed to a week of nothing
and then a week of a lot of training and
a week of nothing so that's really
really key when it comes to to your
performance or your success as a
runner's injury prevention
the third aspects of injury prevention
has really got to do with biomechanics
okay and and the biomechanics of running
or the body mechanics of your body is
essentially that if there's an aspect of
of your one part of your body that's
maybe a little bit weaker that's going
to affect the way you run that's going
to affect your biomechanics of how you
run and because the body's a chain and
I'll mention this again later the body's
a chain if if something's going wrong at
one side it's going to affect something
else
um other aspects of biomechanics that I
always want to mention is is that if
we're not strong enough in certain areas
like uh within our hips so let's take
our hips as an example and our glute
side at the back here and if that's not
strong enough what happens there's a
little bit of internal rotation of the
hips what happens is then your knees
internally rotates a little bit and then
you very often land up with with knee
pain or ankle pain or so on and and as
female Runners that's definitely
something you need to take into account
because we have wider hips not saying
that the guys mustn't worry about this
but because females also have wider hips
there's a lot more of that internal
rotation that can take place and so all
of these aspects of the way we and the
way we move we need to take into account
and so that's why it's really really
important from an injury prevention
point of view to be complementing your
running with strength training
the second aspect here is is better
eccentric loading okay so let me just
explain that what that means okay so
we're talking about the way our muscles
contracts when we run uh muscles
contracts in two main ways the first way
is concentric which means your muscle
fibers are pulling together as your
muscle is Contracting okay
um so don't laugh at much more bicep but
imagine I'm holding a weight over here
as I contract there the muscle fibers
are pulling together right they're
coming together and the muscles
Contracting if I'm holding this weight
over here and I extend it that is an
eccentric contraction the muscle fibers
are pulling apart and the muscle still
Contracting okay let me put this into
running terms for you every time you
push off the ground okay your your
muscles will contract concentrically in
particular your quads concentrically
okay so it's a nice strong contraction
look at how many muscle fibers would be
tied together every time you land on the
ground there's that shock absorbing
factor and the muscle fibers are pulling
apart so you can see less fibers
together and lots less of a strong
contraction that's very poor English but
less strong contraction okay so
concentric nice and strong eccentric a
little bit of a weaker contraction but
that's every time you're hitting the
ground every time you have that shock
absorb
sorry I didn't come back sorry can Dev
just give me a
cool Dave sorry I think I'm back there
sorry I think you guys lost me for a
second but I think good yeah okay so
every time you hit the ground that's
where you left off
thanks Linds thank you so every time you
hit the ground okay that's the eccentric
contraction so
why this is important in a race like
Commerce and Lindsay's going to go into
this in a little bit more detail but you
know the general or the gist of it right
it's the Dan run and so every time we're
running down every time you land on the
ground your body is going to be or your
muscles are going to be contracted
eccentrically and so we really want to
ensure that we're using strength
training to help us get stronger in
those eccentric contractions so that you
can you don't fatigue as quickly all
right when you get when you hit Fields
heel at that point in your race you want
to be able to be strong enough to
maintain those eccentric contractions or
that eccentric loading as you come in
towards the end of your race okay so
that is really really important
the third aspect of this is is that you
can improve your your writing
performance okay and this is um
there's a picture of a fuel tanker or
gas or petrol and I know worldwide and
definitely in South Africa fuel is quite
expensive right and so think about your
running economy the same way we do the
fuel economy of your car okay so we want
to get as far and as fast as we can with
as least or as as cheap necessarily as
cheaper fuel as as possible right so
Nikki's gone into a whole discussion
around how we need to fuel our body and
so by doing strength training what
you're doing is you are improving your
running economy when we look at the
elite athletes yes VO2 max is really
important and there's a high correlation
between javio to Max and really good
performers in in running but it actually
comes down to people Elite athletes with
how a really really good running economy
that is different excuse me definitive
between the two and so strength training
is one of the aspects that you can do
that's really going to improve your
running without running okay and then
it's almost just one of those things
that we want to improve our writing
performance by not necessarily just
running all the time because running is
so hard and so and so hard on the road
so we want to make sure that by doing
string training we're improving this
running economy there's a there's some
studies that show that you can improve
your running economy by four to six
percent by doing strength training
imagine doing that in your car imagine
imagine improving your running economy
or your running excuse me imagine
improving your fuel economy in your car
by four percent oh my gosh we'll be
saving so much money equivalently think
about that in the same way with with
your running okay so so that is almost
like a freebie and that's one of the
last little points as to why I think
it's so important to improve your your
running performance
I mentioned earlier the body is a chain
okay so there's a long little sentence
here that says you know if you've got a
stronger core you'll be able to transfer
forces a lot better it's just a very
fancy way of saying that if you have a
stronger core there's less of this kind
of you know shifting side to side you
become a lot more efficient right so
we're coming back onto that drowning
economy thing we become much more of an
efficient sort of car or or engine and
so that's a really really great great
way to think about it
um and again with this body being a
chain if there's something going wrong
in the hips that might refer down to the
knee and you might land up with knee
pain or or if there's something wrong in
your feet and your feet aren't
necessarily strong enough that might
refer upwards into the lower limb
um and and again you know around things
like posture and so on if we if we're
not strong over here and then we get in
this constant sort of uh depressed kind
of posture that affects our running
economy as well as and we're not as
efficient as we'd like to be
okay
the third aspect shows is that by doing
strength training you
increase your resistance to fatigue all
right so uh what that means is that you
push that boundary of how long it takes
you to fatigue a lot further along the
line there was a study done on ten
thousand meters of track runners one of
the groups that strength training one of
the groups didn't do strength training
and the group that did do strength
training only started to fatigue in that
race much later and so that is really
really key as well is that is that
you're pushing your resistance to
fatigue a lot later in your race yes
it's an ultra marathon you are going to
get fatigued I'm not saying that by
doing strength training you're going to
make it to the 90 case and feel like
like you've just been on a walk but we
want to push that as far along in that
race as much as we can and strength
training is definitely one of the
aspects that that helps with that
this is quack key and Lindsay will dive
into this right heels heels and more
heels on the down run you guys are you
like trying to we entered the diner not
the operand but but guys the first
55ks of this race is is climbing right
so yes there's ups and there's dance but
a lot of it is climbing
um and so we want to make sure that
we're strong enough to get up those
Hills that by the time we hit Fields
Hill and coming down we haven't sort of
ripped our muscles to shreds and
absolutely depleted all of it and are
broken so that by the time we get down
there we were able to get to to the end
of the race without feeling absolutely
shattered okay so that is also one of
the aspects that we need to need to
really be aware of here so it's the down
run but there is still a lot of climbing
that happens up before you actually hit
the hit the actual down
okay so that's the why of strength
training I know I've gone through that
quite quickly just remember injury
prevention improving your performance
then I even forgot my third one now as
well but okay so that's the that's the
why of of your strength training what is
strength training what what kind of
string training are we talking about I
had a picture of yoga in the beginning
um people ask me about Pilates people
often confuse
um Crush training with strength training
it's a it's a form of questioning but
I'd like you to think of it as two
different aspects okay what I'm talking
about here in particular is resistance
training okay that doesn't mean to say
that it has to be weights okay it means
pushing your body against some form of a
resistance that could be body weight
training you are doing a basic body
push-up that is you pushing your body
against a form of resistance
um and that is and that is why this is
so important
things like cycling and Rowing those are
forms of crush training and they're
Excellence but they're not going to give
you the strength that you need in order
to put you through uh the the demands of
this race specifically
we want this type of training to be
running specific
um so you want the exercises to focus on
the specific Focus areas that we used in
in running right so so that's your
quadriceps your hamstrings glutes the
lower leg so calves shins
um we do want to focus obviously on the
core when I say core people often think
abdominals the core is essentially if
this is your spine the core is the all
of the muscles that surround that spine
so your whole track okay we want to make
that nice and strong we want to look
kind of focused on the glutes and one of
the aspects that Runners are always
forgetting and there's a ton of really
good research on this at the moment is
what we call what I call foot core so
working on the the small little muscles
in your feet
um because we run us right we're on our
feet we walk all day and we're on our
feet and if you're not working on those
smaller muscles the bigger ones just
take over those ones get lazy and as I
mentioned the body's a chain and if
something's wrong somewhere else it
might refer further up the chain okay so
there are specific areas that we want to
focus on and um and just make sure that
they're running specific and helping you
prevent injuries for running
this is really really important okay
progression is important I think that's
a common theme through this as you do
with your running as Nikki mentioned you
want to slowly progress those things up
and and and and build it up slowly I'm
not saying to you that you need to join
a gym and jump into the gym and start
deadlifting 100 kilograms please don't
do that okay we want to start with where
you are at so if you've never done any
strength training start with body weight
sort of stuff
um focus on the stabilizers focus on
basic exercises like step ups and squats
you don't squats squats you don't need
weights necessarily but as we progress
and get stronger we can start adding in
some resistance you can start adding in
some weights light weights you can start
adding in some bands any kind of form of
resistance is great but we want to
progress to where you are currently and
the key thing is you want your strength
training to complement your running
right as I mentioned we're Runners we
don't want to just becoming big sort of
bodybuilders or uh you know anything
else we want to be Runners and once our
strength training to complement our
running
so how often right
um
ideally we're looking at two sessions a
week again we want this to complement
your running I don't want it to take
over your running necessarily so we're
looking at ideal of two sessions a week
we have a saying here at coach Perry
generally that is um two is two is
better than one and one is better than
none okay I would far prefer that you
stick to one session consistently all
the way up to towards race day as
opposed to going two sessions then
nothing for two weeks in one session
then nothing for two weeks rather do the
one if you can't stick to two generally
if you if you are 45 years 40 to 45
um sorry 45 to 50 years or older I would
like to see that it being more two to
three sessions per week okay so because
there's a loss of lean muscle mass as we
get older we do want to look at that
um specifically as we're getting a
little bit older but yes two sessions
per week would be the ideal one is is
better than none and those sessions are
around 45 minutes maximum in our coach
Perry sessions we're we do is we have we
run a warm-up a mobility and strength
within a 45 minute session and you can
really get a lot done in those 45
minutes that complements your running
very nicely
when to stop strength training
um hopefully never okay so as a general
rule for life I I really would like to
see that this is something that you keep
through uh through your life where we're
talking specifically within your
training here so you want to reduce your
strength training within your
um in your recovery weeks so if you have
recovered if you're working on a four
week cycle for your renting so you week
one then week two we're building up the
running a little bit week three we build
it up a little bit more week four we
tend to bring the volume down in those
lower volume running weeks I also want
you to reduce your strength so if you're
only doing if you're doing two string
sessions a week in that recovery week
you drop it to one if you're only doing
one string session you can take that
string session out and maybe just do
some live Mobility
the same goes for
um reducing the load in your big
training weeks so as you're coming up to
your qualifier as you're coming up to
your big runs you know the big the big
training rounds your comrades around
your long run you definitely want to
reduce the the strength training in
those weeks as well okay
and then before race day you want to
stop doing strength training altogether
at least 10 days before race day I'm
happy with 10 to 14 days
um if you are very much a beginner with
strength training I would say up to 14
days and then you can also just maintain
within those days by doing some live
Mobility or some foot core but
definitely stopping the the hard sort of
strength at least 10 days before
comrades and that would probably go for
for a qualifier as well for those of you
who haven't qualified yet I would say at
least seven to ten days before your
qualifier you can you can stop that
before comrade race day you're looking
at 10 days before the time
foreign
considerations this is my my last Point
um is is the technique okay
um you can go anywhere you can Google
strengths for running and you will get
all the exercises that you probably need
it is so much guys it has got so much to
do with about how you do the exercises
and less about what exercises to do a
lot of people always say to me Shona
what exercises should I be doing for for
comrades or what strength training
should I be doing yes those exercises
are important but if you don't do them
properly you're not going to be a
getting the benefits from them that you
need and B you might also be putting
yourself at a risk of injury so really
really focus on the technique of how you
do these exercises that is absolutely
important and then as I mentioned again
those progressions for where you are so
build up your you know build yourself up
slowly don't just dive into crazy
um sort of string sessions again we want
these string sessions to complement your
writing okay so if that's the one way I
can get Runners to start adding strength
into their plans is that to let you know
that I'm not trying to take you take you
off the road or off the trails I'm
trying to keep you on the road and the
way we're doing that is by just adding
some strength training in and trying to
compliments it
um for where you are currently okay
last point for me there before I hand
back to Lindsay and the team
um we have a friend of a French it's not
a French strength plan it's a free
strength training plan right so just
scan that QR code I promise you it's in
English I'm sure we could get it
translated into French if you need to
it's a very basic simple plan to get you
started
um and and sorry that's maybe one thing
I didn't mention is that you don't have
to do the strength training in a gym and
you'll see with the string plan it's
very basic you can do it at home you can
put Netflix on and do the same strength
training at the same time
um and and get it done you know when you
can all right so yeah that is that is my
but I'm sure there'll be a couple of
questions Linds and and we can tackle
those in in the Q a afterwards
cool yeah and I'll pop up the
um
let's call it barcode I'll pop that up
for you to scan again later in the talk
because we we haven't left too much time
to do that now so I'll pop that on
during the Q a
right so this is what we're training for
it is the down run
and this map doesn't truly do it justice
but it does allow us to to pull in some
key points and for tonight that's really
what I want to do is draw your attention
to some key points and and why when we
talk about
um the comrades there is a lot of up
running to begin with and then
um some severe downhill in the second
half of the race so the highest point of
the race comes just after 25 kilometers
so for the first 25 cares of the race
you really work will be forgiven for
thinking that we conjure into coming and
running the down Runner and in fact this
was an upround all along so it just
prepare yourself mentally for tons of
climbing in the first 25ks and then it
is mostly downhill to German to halfway
but there are some lumps along the way
to to be aware of and then this map
absolutely does no justice to the client
I'm from German to the top above this
hill it is really really significant
really really tough it's really really
long
um and the point is that when you get to
the top of both this hill you've got
just over a marathon lift
and most of that marathon is downhill
okay there are some Clans there still
but most of those kilometers are
downhill on tight legs and although that
sounds like paradise the problem is that
often people go way too fast in those
first 56 or so caves and then it really
makes those last 36 37 cars very very
hard and that eccentric pounding
particularly on fields Hill so there's
almost 10 cares of un
um ending downhill and that's really
where the strength training is
absolutely so key and why we've had a
talk on strength training this evening
right so we all know the big five okay
the big five generally made famous by
the uprun so I know there were some
people giving
comrades a hard time on socials but
probably Short's not been one of the big
five on the download it is it is one of
the big five and it comes very early and
we run up the short side on the down run
but it is one of the big fast so you're
a big father polish shorts and changa
both as Hill I put Fields Hill in
bracket because it's officially one of
the big five but on the down run I call
it cowies and 45th cutting technically
45th cutting is not one of the big five
but it's how I I work it on on the app
run and and in changa and
um field of course are downhills but
they both do enormous damage to your
legs on the down run but as Shona
mentioned the problem is for people who
haven't done comrades before they always
mentally prepared for these big five
tough climbs that they've got to do but
we don't prepare ourselves mentally for
all the little climbs in between
probably the hardest of those clams that
nobody tells you about is once you have
gone over little polies on the down run
you climb from the bottom of there all
the way until you go under the highway
and it's a really long palm of about
three just over three kilometers so
those are really the important things to
remember
umlas road is the highest points are
25ks that's where you're going to do
that last little time and get to the
highest point then you hit the Harrison
not so flat they're lumpy but they're
not too bad but again just don't expect
any flat running at comrades when you
get into Hillcrest what's so tough there
is that now you've run down both this
hill and you've got people shouting it's
Daniel from here it's Daniel from here
and you're here to Hillcrest there's a
400 meter climb there which is to be
honest the normal day of the week is not
so bad but after running over 50
kilometers it it is tough and then after
you've gone down cowie's hill the
running is really really good except for
a little bump you've got to go over with
about 14 K's to go and then you do 45th
cutting and you think to yourself wow
that's it I've finally done all the
climbing but as soon as you get over
45th down the other side you've got to
go up a very short steep steep little
plant to get onto the highway that's the
mobile off ramp for you you'll be using
it as an on-ramp and then finally
Tollgate Bridge with about 5Ks to go is
the last time your class so just prepare
yourself mentally there's lots of
climbing lots of downs and not much flat
on the comrades down run okay it's a
unique challenge because there's early
climbing which soften you have to make
you tired zap your energy and then this
long downhill with eccentric load that
you've got to prepare your yourself for
two weeks before comrades we will really
go in depth and not quite kilometer by
kilometer but I'll really go in depth
and I urge you to to listen to that so
that for those last two weeks you can do
your final preparation visualization and
really and dial in your your race plan
and The Eccentric load in the second and
half is huge so you have to do strength
training and I want to tell you that
from a training point of view you want
to do enough you don't want to do too
much because if you arrive tired or
injured on comrades rest day you are
going to be in real trouble in those
last 25 kilometers okay I said it
earlier I was going to share a really
critical step with you and here it is
okay in 2016 we have the highest Dropout
in years so we sent out a survey to the
over 4 000 athletes who didn't finish
comrades over a thousand of those
responded back to us now that is
incredibly powerful stats it tells us
what we need to know
641 respondents that did not finish
comrades started comrades with an injury
okay
they started calm as an injury so if you
start communism injury you are massively
increasing your risk of not finishing
comrades you're increasing your risk
essentially by 60 percent
of not finishing comrades okay so you
want to do the right amounts of training
being slightly underdone and doing
strength training is going to be far
better than doing too much and breaking
down of the injury so let's get into
what we want to do for these next 12
weeks okay we need to be training
consistently I emphasize that right at
the beginning of the talk really really
important okay right now we don't want
to be going crazy okay we want to start
sorry I I made a typo there we really
start the training in March so we're
preparing for June so the comrades
training truly starts in March which is
literally 10 days away so we are on the
doorstep up until now we've been
building up okay
you want to try and qualify as early as
you can okay that's that's a given but
the most important part about qualifying
is you need to qualify when you're ready
you've got until the first week of May
to qualify and the most important thing
to note about that is that the later you
qualify the easier you want to do that
Marathon okay I realize that I'm talking
to
a lot of people tonight that
running a 450 Marathon takes everything
and so if you do fall in that kind of
two to three thousand Runners that are
going to be finishing comrades in the
last half an hour then of course
whenever you qualify it's going to be
tough and the important thing is that
you must then make sure that you recover
properly afterwards if you start
training too soon afterwards you're
going to get injured so we try to
qualify as early as we can and the later
we leave that qualifying the easier we
run and the harder we have to run to
qualify the more important it is to
recover afterwards
on both School March we don't want to be
smashing the intensity okay I'm not
talking to the silver medal athletes I'm
not really talking to bill rhones now
either those two medals will be bringing
in some intensity the Robert machales
your bronzers your finishes which that's
75 to 80 percent of the comrades field
we're not too worried about intensity
now we're worried about being consistent
we're worried about building up
slowly systematically and not jumping up
our mileage too quickly okay your long
runs probably from March or long runs
constitute the most important training
session why because we need to mentally
prepare for being on the road for a long
period of time so try not to miss those
but the most important aspect is
consistency so we want to keep ticking
our boxes doing our sessions I chatted
to our clients today who's training for
a very fast comrade and I was like yeah
you don't want to look too far ahead
because the mileage is getting quite
high and he said you know what Lindsey
when we get to high mileage weeks I
don't even think about the total
all I do is tackle it one session at a
time I make sure that if I do every
session I'm going to get to the number
that I need to get to at the end of the
week and that's really what consistency
is about take the sessions if you keep
taking the sessions they build one on
top of each other it makes everything
manageable okay you can and you should
be walking
on your Long training runs because you
can and should be walking on rest day so
that's very important you don't have to
be stubborn and get through these
training sessions with no walking you
absolutely are allowed to walk when you
do
um your comrades training right your
targets distances for March for finishes
I know that number looks low there's
people that are looking at that and
going forget it that's not enough
training I promise you four finishes
50ks a week is enough you're going to do
a couple of weeks anywhere that are
bigger than that because you're going to
do these long runs you're going to do
your first marathon you can do your
first Ultra so they're going to be some
weeks that are quite big but your week
to week you only need to be doing 50ks a
week bronze 55 to 60 all rounds will be
doing about 80 K's a week maybe a little
bit more in March and silver medals see
I told you earlier you run a 7-Eleven
you don't have any friends probably
don't like your family 100ks a week that
takes a lot of time and and commitment
um so Robert with Charlie
I really shouldn't forget about him it's
a cool new medal but Robert but Charlie
you're probably looking at
um about 65 to 70 kilometers a week
that's very similar to to Silver metal
right moving into April April is going
to be your biggest month of China okay
so for the finishes you're going to be
50 to 60 cars a week again you're going
to have these outliers you're going to
do
um towards
the first week of May
um you're going to do a long run of
50k's all by itself and so that week
you're probably going to end up with a
75 almost 80k week but for your general
week to week training 50 to 60 bronze 60
to 65 your Robert machali 70 to 75 Bull
Run 80 to 90 K's in your silver
depending on exactly what you're
training for goal was it's going to be
between 100 and 160 K's a week
right we have written the plans for you
so you really don't have to think too
hard about this if you jump onto those
training plans I will prepare you for
comrades the very important thing with
these training plans is to remember that
you must train for what you are capable
of if you try and jump up medals to try
and be sure of your middle you're going
to risk injury these programs are
written to get you to the finishing time
that you're looking for and to try and
get you their injury-free that's really
the target so if you're running around
about 450 to 224 marathon it's the
finisher plan if you're a 425 for a
marathon and a 210 for a half it's
bronze if you can run a four hour
marathon or a sub 2 hour half it's
rather than Charlie if you can run a sub
335
um Marathon or a 145 half it's Bull Run
and if you can run a sub three hour or a
sub for a marathon or a sub 1 26 and a
half you're looking at Isabel Ross Kelly
silver medal and then I just put the
Wally Hayward up there so you can see
that those Metals require unique human
beings so sub Wally Hayward sub 250
marathon and a 72 minute
um half marathon so
those plans are on the comrades website
those plans are on the coach Perry
website you don't have to do anything
you can follow those plans and they will
get you to the Finish Line okay
make sure that you are in the right
shoes for you that is a critical area
for avoiding injury and make sure that
they are new enough at the start of
March that they're going to get you
through at least March and April and I
would always look at getting a new pair
of shoes
early in May so that you can run those
in and have them with about 150 to 200
kilometers
full comrade dressed that's about how
many K's you want in your comrade shoot
unless of course you're going to be in a
super shoe then you want less then you
want 50 to 100K as if you're going to be
wearing um one of the the carbon fiber
shoes but you don't want to be buying
new shoes at the end of May and trying
to to get them in and then in the Q a
we'll just maybe talk a little bit about
some equipment for strength training
that you can then do at home right
next up the treats for the evening we've
got Adele bread she was the third lady
across the line First South African she
um also had a storming run at only done
that I don't want to talk too much about
because I saw uh something about that in
the presentation so I want to leave
there too but fantastic
um local athlete better her first
comrades last year so talking to us from
Potch the Dell really looking forward to
your talk
for the opportunity
um yeah it's really an honor to be here
um thank you for the warm welcome
so yes everybody I am Adele I completed
my first um comrades Marathon last year
and similar to you guys I also attended
this exact webinar last year so going
into it really with big eyes and hoping
to gain a lot of insights which yeah
paid off so I'm really hoping that you
will also take similar knowledge with
you on this road because it's really an
exciting Road
so just a bit of background
um why I started running now my mother
loves to tell the story of Where it All
Began so when I was in grade one I
finished in a second position for the 60
meter Sprints so as you can see on that
photo I'm on the top second position on
the podium I was really not very happy
and I was actually devastated
and I wanted to be faster and I wanted
to win as I'm really I've got a very
competitive Spirit within me in all
aspects of life
and a local dad approached my mom and
said hey he will be my coach
so the year after that I dominated on
the podiums
um blooming with self-confidence but
yeah it wasn't always right sunshines
and rainbows um I barely even met a
provisional
um team and to go further but that love
for running sticked within me and I
continued to that throughout my life
well why did I then also continue to run
so
um
when I
entered the university level I I want to
say I took a Gap a bit from the running
as I really wanted to focus on my
studies
and it was only after my honest year
that I put on my running shoes again so
really lost a lot of Fitness
um and that's really when I just I had
this hunger again for for my running
but just like the hopefully everyone
listening life goes on I got married I
got into eight to five job position I
had my children
etc etc
so for husband and I we always saw a
competition or a raise as a possible
little vacation or a Gateway
a way of spending life together time
together seeing some friends and family
so either going to Cape Town on the
right-hand side which was literally our
first half marathon ever the two oceans
or running our first marathon together
on the left-hand side which I did the
national forest Run literally 11 months
after giving birth to my firstborn
so yeah we really enjoyed this journey
together tackling every single Race
distance from 10 to 50 kilometers
um our our debut runs together for the
first time
um but he just said no he's not doing
the comrades he will support me from the
side which I was forever grateful for so
yeah
now you might ask okay but then why
comrades well why not comrades
I grew up in a household where we
watched this beloved comrades race from
gunshot to gunshot from start to finish
literally not moving away from the couch
as we were too scared we might miss
anything
so I grew up with this lifelong dream
that I want to run this race one day
placing every single runner on a
pedestal and thinking that they are
literally like the ultimate athletes to
be able to complete that distance in a
single day
so I decided okay the year that I turned
30 that that year I will run the
comrades as a happy birthday present to
myself
but unfortunately that year was when
covert hit and I had to postpone that
dream with two years which in hindsight
I think was a very great thing so I got
a bit of extra mental preparation
now
my my first thought was where do I begin
where should I or how should I prepare
for my first comrades as I am a sports
scientist and a lecturer I have all this
knowledge so I barely ever had a coach
to coach me I I coached myself
so in 2022 the date was proposed 28
August 2022.
um having all this knowledge I started
thinking about writing my programs up
until the two oceans ultra marathon
but I definitely did not know what to do
further than that especially for a race
like the comrades how do I play with
variables such as the recovery how much
recovery should I do
um do I rest one day do I rest two days
do I rest at all for the conrades
marathon
um do I play with the intensity so
should I do some interval training or
should it just be some basic endurance
type of running and the volume also
known as the mileage do I run thousands
and thousands of kilometers or can I
keep it short and simple so all of these
thoughts went through my through my mind
um especially before I attended this
specific webinar and also took some
hands with some knowledgeable people
so the only thing that I knew or
constant thing that I knew was there's a
mountain of training that's awaiting for
me 12 weeks before comrades
um whether it be volume-based mileage
base or time on the road I just knew
that there's a mountain that I will have
to be able to climb to successfully
Master this dream of mine
no like I mentioned as a sports
scientist I I know that I have to plan
um you can't just go blindly and do the
same training session day in and day out
you have to start planning something so
going on Google entering planning or
plans or training plans you will
definitely pop or see that diagram pop
up on your screen where it divides
training sessions for you in various
phases so I knew now okay so there's
various phases that I have to implement
in my training plan but how do I
implement it or when do I start
implementing it implementing it
so
I read up on all this information
um because I did not just want to gain
the benefits such as endurance and
fitness but also to minimize the risk
for injuries or getting sick
I went into training with the mindset of
rather under trained at the race then
over trained or injured which could
result in me being part of the 650
injured athletes not even completing the
race
so as I said I knew that the the
training plan will consist of various
phases and also where you have a
preparation period that is the period
that we all will start going into where
you do a lot of Fitness or endurance
based
um type of activities and later on start
focusing on your competition levels
where I will
give you a bit of info on that in the
next slide
so I also took into consideration the
root profile knowing that there's going
to be a lot of climbing so I need to
start focusing on my strength training
as as well for the concentric as well as
my eccentric so like shown I said The
Eccentric is all the decent where you go
down where your muscle fibers are in a
lengthened position so I started
training for those both of those
um to training types strength types so
that I can be strong throughout the race
now remember please even though I
finished
um with a very good time I think
um that time and that position was
definitely not planned from the get-go
and that was near a few weeks before
Commerce that I started thinking started
thinking about a good position so I
wanted just to finish the race so that
is why I started implementing all these
plants
so
um after April last year I took hands
with Coach Lindsay and said okay let's
start working on a one-to-one basis so
that I can really maximize my
performance
um so that you can help me and guide me
because I had the knowledge to train up
to let's say 40 kilometers but nothing
further than that so and so that he can
coach and tell me okay but how long
should your long runs be is there a
matter to The Madness of running 60
between 60 and 80 kilometer long runs
um is there science behind running 200
plus kilometers because that is all the
information that I heard from other
athletes and Runners and your crazy
information so
um planting that little seed of often
doubt and overreaching which will
ultimately
um end in an overtrained and injured
athlete so just getting a sound board as
to what should my intensities be what
can I aim for how to implement the
principle of progression taking into
consideration my competition schedule my
workload and also my health because I
have a eight to five job similar to you
guys I am a mother of two little very
busy children so there are days that
training goes well and they were days
that I barely slept so how do I adjust
my training schedule so that I can
really get the best out of every single
day
so for me
um joining coach Perry's team was really
a sound board so that I can get the best
out of my training that I wanted to
now going into the competition phase
I used my races to my advantaged
so as I said
you have a very large competition period
that you will go into and that can
really start off a few weeks before your
race to a few months before your race
and I saw this as an ideal opportunity
to play around with various aspects that
I needed for my comrades race day
such as my race pace so coach Lindsay
said if you plan to run walk run walk
your comrades Journey do that in your
races so for me I trained my races
especially my longer races the marathons
the ultra marathons to run them at the
desired Pace that I want to run comrades
with
I chose specific races that is for
instance not a flat and fast route like
the only done which is a very hilly
cause of approximately seven eight
hundred meter elevation gain on that 50
kilometer race so training
um at altitude on a hilly course at my
specific race Pace to see what on my
body able to do and then also
incorporating factors such as a sleep
regime so trying really to get my
optimal sleep levels in before
competition so trying to manipulate my
sleep routine a few weeks before the
races so that it's not a new type of
routine before comrades nutrition to
really see what works with my body
before the races and also during the
races you don't want to enter a race
such as the comrades where with
substances that your body is not
accustomed to because you can get
gastrointestinal discomfort
um you can cramp up yeah you really you
want to go into that race while prepared
um doing for instance a training run so
we went and we did a training run on the
comrades route with a full kit on
um to do like a dress rehearsal so
running desired Pace doing your
substances or your supplements
throughout the race as you planned it
out and to see what works and what does
not work for you
um and then also why a big reason why I
Incorporated races
um in my training plan was
we know the the stands in South Africa
so for me it was a chance then to do a
long run in a safe environment so I knew
the roads will be blocked off I knew
they will be
um police control
surveying us I really felt safe I knew
there will be water tables or fueling
stations and lastly I also knew that
there's going to be some nice company
for me at these races
so what did you expect at the comrades
now I think the one and the biggest
thing that stands out for me is the
atmosphere
you will feel the buzz upon entering
Durban
uh we felt the buzz upon entering joburg
um airport everyone was happy everyone
is excited
um and this is what comrades is about I
will never forget the day before
comrades are we went for a little jog on
the Promenade and they were literally
thousands of runners
jogging up and down singing
um all the various time
um stations of time buses they got
together and they did their jobs
together so this was really such a nice
experience for us and I knew that this
is what comrades is about it's about the
common lady between the athletes friends
family The Spectators
along the Route as you will see in this
picture they will literally be thousands
of Spectators there for you and they
will stream out their lungs out for the
first round up to the last Runner I'm
supporting everyone and this is really
so uplifting that kilometers will just
go by unnoticed you will just notice ah
kilometer 32 34 35 up to 90 has passed
and they will vary from Hometown
residents schools bands singing cars
rooting for you
um
so believe me you will definitely not
have a shortage on moral support or
filling stations because everyone will
try and give you something that they
truly believe in will work
um I got a few interesting offers along
the Route but I said no I'm I'm sticking
to my plan and sticking to my guns
um I don't want to take any chances
now what was the atmosphere from the
front
now let's just say that leading the race
from the store was not part of our rice
plan but like I said that atmosphere was
so electric from the start that I felt
so energized and I felt super strong I
think
um yeah if if it was 100 meter sprint I
would definitely have one Usain Bolt
that day
and when you start stand behind that
starting line and shows the laws are
sung and then the national anthem and
you hear the rooster screaming you are
literally fired up I was so fine up I
almost made a false thought leave it or
not if that is possible at a conference
race but my one friend just hold me back
which is like no not yet not yet stop
stop
so fun times
um also knowing you are running
alongside thousands and thousands of
athletes and all has the exact same goal
as you and that is to finish the
ultimate human race
and that was exactly my goal as well I
wanted it to finish the race to my best
to the best of my abilities
whether that would have been to end up
with a bull Rowan bronze silver gold or
the first position I wanted to enjoy my
race and I wanted to to finish the race
um
but why you might ask
why enjoyed if I was in such a good
position while the answer is simple
you only get one chance to run your
first comrades race from there on you
will never get your first chance again
it's the second the third
um it's a bit of the known nothing is
the unknown anymore
so for me I really said no matter what
no matter the position or pain I'm going
through
um I'm gonna enjoy it and that was
literally what happened so even though I
was in the leading position for 60
kilometers and then I was in pain and
then I dropped down to the third
position I enjoyed every single second
of the day and I stayed at the stadium
until the final whistle was blown and
the last athlete crossed the Finish Line
um bringing back all the memories from
my childhood so yeah so from one novice
to another
nothing is impossible and that is what I
want to tell you guys really nothing is
impossible
um if you put your heart into the race
you will definitely finish it
thank you that was super cool I've got
my own Goosebumps there so yeah just in
case you think I'm making it up very
cool very um and that really sums up
what being a novice at comrades is all
about
um
yeah and hopefully this year you will
use all that experience to go a few
steps better
um yeah so that brings us to the
question part of the evening so please I
know people have been asking questions
you can carry on asking questions I
promised half an hour at the start and
we will do at least half an hour
um so yeah I get those questions in I'm
gonna flick back just to the strength
um
so that you can scan that barcode and
then I'll come back a little later on
with you so anyone who wants to download
that strength training plan can and
China will drive the Q a session
um and yeah fire away let's get cracking
yeah let's let's get cracking um maybe
while we've got Adele with us
um Adele I'm gonna gonna ask you your
first question is it is later and I know
a time Elite athletes go to sleep so so
you probably need to get cracking off to
bed soon enough otherwise your coach is
going to shout out to you tomorrow
um Nick is uh asking a great question he
says when you're on Route
um do you look at staying in the middle
of the road or you know so there isn't
as much of a Kimber that is obviously
going to differ for you compared to the
guys at the back because you have a lot
more space but yeah maybe just give your
insights on on that and um yeah that'd
be great
definitely try and go to to run the
shortest distance possible because if
you're going to run in the middle you
can ultimately run up to four kilometers
extra over that whole 90 kilometer race
so
um we trained that into the race but
when I got into the race that specific
day there's this these photos of me
running alongside the road and then I
made the click off hey but you're
running on the wrong side of the road
you have to be on the right hand side
you're running a longer distance and
then I made like a short right turn so
try really and shorten the the distance
for yourself but if it's not possible if
there's thousands of athletes alongside
you and you risk an injury or um you are
to to follow something just stay in your
lane But ultimately I I didn't complete
90 or 89 kilometers as advertised I
completed 91 kilometers on race day
awesome well thank you yeah thank you so
much Adele uh yeah if there's another
question that comes up I will I'll try
and get it on for you quicker then so
you can go and do some good sleep
Lindsay did mention sleep
um Linds I'll I'll bring you into this
uh four question here Brad is awesome
this is a great question I know there's
an article that uh Camille Herron who's
obviously a ex comrades uh winner um uh
spoke about in terms of her long runs
but Brad is asking how long should your
weekly long run be
um and and what are your views about the
traditional long run versus perhaps
breaking that up into smaller as he said
your double run days perhaps
for me the long run also has a few
um
parts to it that are more than just
physiological
um and you know that is dialing in on
the nutrition and it is getting yourself
mentally ready I do think traditionally
that most people do way too long
training runs and you don't need to be
bashing out 40 plus kilometers a week
weekend week out
um for the majority of the field
I feel like three runs of 42ks or longer
is all you need for comrade so your
qualifier and two Ultras or two
marathons and one Ultra and I really
don't feel like anybody needs to run
more than 50 kilometers to run a solid
comrade so that's really is for the
majority of the field
um yeah if only enough
while I was
um
waiting for something earlier today I I
was reading
um some comments from
as Steve Magnus is a really
internationally well-known Exiles
physiologist and they they talk about
two hours being optimal for
mitochondrial development so you know
some physiological point of view
probably two-hour rounds are enough and
if you do have time that you can split
runs and split long runs up that's a
really good way of doing it and you get
very close to the same
um adaptation by splitting it up like
that the only thing you don't get is
that little bit of mental what it feels
like to be on your feet that long and
the nutrition and so if you do have time
and you are splitting up your owns then
I would say that's absolutely fine but
just make sure that you have those three
or four opportunities where you do run
between you know 32ks the old old
traditional 20 Mana or 42 and a 50
somewhere
um
so yeah that is it
um yeah in terms of
yeah no that's that I think that that
answers that question yeah
I'm just going to follow on with that
one Lin's just while I've spotted
because you mentioned the 50k but Ingo
ingo's asking here is is a 50k run 50k
long run at the beginning of March too
early when when do we want to be doing
that long run look it is it is quite
early because it means that you are
quite Fit already and so the beginning
of March we don't really want to be
super fit we want to be
fits enough to really start training
properly for comrades so in my opinion
is a little bit early yes they're going
to be people that are running that far
yes they are training to do something
special at comrades
um and I think that's that that that is
part of the problem with how people
prepare for comrades is that most of
what we think we know about preparing
for comrades comes from a time when they
were like less than 2 000 finishes and
more than a thousand of them were
running silver medals so you got advice
from really the most talented runners in
the country and that's not the same for
everybody in the field so I do feel like
that is a little bit early yes
excellent uh and just while you're on so
we're not flicking around with cameras
too much and then Nikki can give her
inputs on this uh question as well so
Linds you go first and then Nikki if you
can maybe follow on
um I think Amanda also asked a similar
question but Johan's asking you I
struggle a lot with cramps from 28 to 32
kilometers will logaren's help what what
he said she's going to help with
cramping because I think Amanda's
question is more along those lines so
Linds if you can go first and then Nikki
if you can give your inputs thereafter
as well yeah so so look with this
specific question doing longer rounds
will help but not doing too many longer
runs because
cramp essentially is from fatigue so we
do want to build up the resistance but
if we do too many you're going to line
up on rest day very tight and you're
still going to crap so strength training
is a really good way of
um helping get you stronger more fatigue
resistant and it does help reduce the
severity and incidence of cramp doing
the right type of long runs at the right
time and run walk so run walk is an
excellent strategy for pushing out the
time to cramping and when the cramps
start instead of stopping dead and
really letting that cramp take hold
fully then you want to walk so as you
feel the cramp coming slow down walk and
then you walk for a little while so you
feel that ease at the menu slowly build
up your run again the other thing you
want to avoid once the cramping starts
is sudden movements you don't want to
just be varying off to the side or
suddenly stopping suddenly starting
because that will then lead to crap but
absolutely most
there are some instances where nutrition
plays a role in cramping and so it's
it's definitely worth having a look at
that but for the majority of people it
is a fatigue model and so improving your
conditioning doing the strength training
run walking those are three key things
that can help improve that situation
great Nikki I'm
always come from a nutrition points as
well um your your inputs on on cramping
yes
um shown I think my finger is to
understand it is coming from the peak so
um the only thing that you can really do
nutrition wise to try and delay fatigue
is as I said feel with the right feel
for what you're running with so
sometimes if you are depleted or feel
that can also obviously
um bring fatigue on and also whilst your
idea dehydrated
um but understanding that the roots of
the cramp is not necessary in the
nutrition side it's not as if you have a
deficiency or something it's just in
terms of what nutrition can do to try
and delay fatigue
yeah excellent so and then I'll I mean I
know I'm asking the questions but let me
just mention from a string side Nikki
don't go away because I'm going to stick
with nutrition after this but from a
strange side with what's cramping it as
Lindsay mentioned it's a fatigue issue
but very often it can also be an
imbalance so I know it often people are
cramping in in their calves it's an
imbalance within the lower limb so
making sure that you're doing some
strength training as well as really
really gonna going to help with that
okay Nikki uh some some of the nutrition
questions that came up and and I know
you would have touched on this in your
talk but but maybe just to give it an
example Nick is asking he says yeah you
know for a marathon I take six gels as
an example uh is it as simple as just
doubling that for comrades or should I
look at taking
um if you can
um okay six trials if you run the
marathon in four hours six gels would
have given you 30 grams of carbohydrate
per hour so I would definitely try it's
sometimes difficult to run an ultra with
just gels because you really do get
fatigued in terms of the the taste of it
um and it can become very sweet I would
try in any case to increase so if you
run it for our marathon I would try and
increase the 30 gram per hour to maybe
try to get to a 40 50 Grand per hour by
adding another type of carbohydrate not
necessary a gel
um but maybe a solid food and train with
that and then and see if that doesn't
give you the better results that maybe
you can save a little bit of the gels
and rather use them on the back end
because then they become easier than the
solid food today
and then just with regards to hydration
and you touched on this quite a bit and
I guess this question is a bit twofold
Andrew's asking we're drowning with a
hydration pack be beneficial for
first-time Runners to avoid dehydration
and I just want to follow that question
on Nikki with another one sorry no I
need to find it but it's around
essentially hypernatremia and there's
over hydration essentially a concern you
know in terms of so how much how much
then I don't know that answer but
um I think hydration pack can be a bit
of Overkill because it is uncomfortable
thing to run with
um and there is plenty plenty water
tables so I don't think that you will
run out of fluids if you trained with
the hydration pack on your back and
that's what you normally use either I
can't see that it would be a problem to
run with that and maybe then you can
stay wide on the water tables because
sometimes there is a little bit of
overcrowding there
um so the the obvious advice would be
drink according to first because there
is ample water tables that advice would
help and would be sensible to do because
there will be fluid available you know
quite soon after you get thirsty as I
said just be tentative to the the
sensation of first
um and that discomfort can sometimes
also make you drink a little bit too
much so over hydration is a thing it's
it's basically a thing and you can drink
too much especially if you go out of the
mind
um I'll drink as much as you can I think
that can be problematic as such that's
why we prefer not only to do it on water
but also to include some drinks with
electrolytes so that you can retain the
fluid a little bit better so I think the
best would be if you know your Sweat
Right drink according to that if you
don't know the sweat rate rather than go
according to First
awesome thanks Nikki uh yeah you can you
can flick yourself off I will come back
to some nutrition ones in a bit um and
Sophie so I hope I hope you're still all
right I think you are I just want to ask
this and if you can answer it for me um
or just let me know or not but it's
hatching on that um you know is there
information of what food and drink
um is provided at the water tables on
the route when where and how can people
get get that information at the moment
uh cannot confirm as it I think people
just need to follow us around think
around me we will have that confirmed
and we will share that information
across our social media
perfect thank you yeah I know for most
of the big races you will sort of get
that information closer to race day so
yeah just um sort of stay tuned tuned
for some of that
um okay tons of questions coming in let
me ask some strength questions because I
guess while I'm asking questions I may
as well answer one or two
um so sorry there was one that I found
here and now I've lost that there's tons
of questions coming in so that that is
awesome thank you
um
this question from Nick is asking Nick
is saying should you do a string session
before or after a run
um considering the two days of rest so I
love that question because
um it's really really it touches in
Lindsay mentioned two days of rest so
yes very often you might have to have
one of your days where you are doing you
know a run and
um strength training on the same day the
science is sort of out on that a lot of
the science kind of says you maybe
should be doing your run first and then
strength but that's really specifically
for sports like rugby or American
football for me I'm just really really
happy if renters are getting their
strength training in I personally like
to run first and then do my strength
training afterwards
um another really nice way to do it as
an ideal is is and this is if you have
the luxury of time is to do you know one
of them in the morning and one of them
in the afternoon so then you know sort
of maximize recovery in between
um but again yeah that that can sort of
vary as a personal preference I often
joke and I think we mentioned this in
the last webinar as well is that Lindsay
and I differ like I say I like to run
first and then do my strength Lindsay
I'm trying to get him to be as
consistent with strength as I'm trying
to get you guys and so very often I'll
say to Lin's uh you know make sure
you're getting it in and Lindsay goes
okay well I'm going to treat my strength
training like my vegetables you know so
I'm going to do my strength training
first and then I'm going to treat myself
with my rent which is my dessert I'm
after it so we often uh call uh strength
training like eating your your brussels
sprouts okay so just so you guys know
um cool let me keep looking for a couple
of questions here let me see if I can
bring Lindsay in in again
um
sorry it's reading reading and talking
at the same time I've been spending too
much time with with the guys doing two
things at once
uh lens this is this is a great question
and and uh I know as coach Perry we've
put up a couple of odds um articles
about this in in the meantime but uh
Nikki you could probably follow on with
us as well because this is important but
how do we adjust
um or how do um people who practice
Ramadan how do they address their
training plans uh with Ramadan because
where it falls within the the training
schedule at the moment if I'm not
mistaken I think it falls over the
oceans period at the moment yeah so it's
a great question
um and we've got a series of articles
that are coming out about that and we
probably also
I have a video at the time that'll go
into it in in quite a lot of detail but
you absolutely need to adjust your
training for that and I would say the
approach becomes moderate consistent
training okay so what time of day
becomes it's it's quite individual
um and I've spoken to a couple of
individuals that have experienced it to
try and get a sense of of which is
better
um and the the answer is it is a little
bit
um on the individual so my preferred
method is to come home in the evening
once the sun has gone down and to break
your fast with something small and then
to run between 45 minutes and an hour
and then after you've run to then
um have a proper meal hydrates Etc
um
there are people who they who like to to
train in the morning but then I would
encourage to do that very early so that
you can get both a meal and fluids in
after your own before the sun comes up
otherwise it makes the force that much
harder during the day
um in terms of
um how to
keep up the training I would say 45 to
60 Minutes three times a week and then
one longer run or a run that splits up
so it may be a shorter run in the
morning on the weekend and a slightly
longer run in the evening so that you
can get in like 20 to maybe 25
kilometers Tops on running with one of
your runs on the weekend by doing that
you're going to maintain a really decent
level of Fitness Without Really
depleting yourself any more than you
need to and it means then that as you
fuel up in those 10 days to 14 days
after a Ramadan ends then you will just
feel the benefit of that training that
you did but you absolutely need to
moderate your training I'd strip out all
the intensity
um moderate intensity moderate duration
exercise is the theme it's about being
consistent it's not about getting in big
big numbers
foreign
I think um Lindsay has said it so if we
can get the run so that we could have
something before and after that would be
really the the ideal
um something like beforehand which is
carbohydrate based afterwards the
carbohydrate plaster protein combination
and then really thorough hydration even
maybe then looking like a rehydration
drink so that we can get to sleep and
through our days proper
awesome thank you
um Lindsay I'm gonna I'm gonna pull you
back in here please
um this is a great question I mean I've
been struggling with a cough because I
spent some time with my God child and
children have a neck of I don't know
sneezing into your eyeballs so as we
move closer to Windsor in Australian
South Africa
um Paula's asking this he's saying in
the event of a minor illness in a full
cold flu how long should you rest for
what's the recommended process for
getting back into training
um can you pick up where you left off or
should you take a few steps back and
ease back into things
um so I guess the second part of his
question ties into with like a running
niggle but let's focus on it from from
an illness perspective uh necessarily
yeah so look it depends a lot on on what
you are ill with and how ill you get
um and viral infections are much worse
than bacterial infections so really the
severity of symptoms and how long their
loss will determine at what level you
you come back at so if it's something
minor like a head cold two three days or
of sick and not training then all I
would say is when you come back you can
slot straight into a program but drop
all the intensity out of it and use your
heart rate to determine how to run now
the only way you can effectively do that
if you have a good idea of what your
easy run heart rate is pre-illness so if
you if you know what that is it makes it
much easier to come back now if you get
quite sick and you the symptoms are
quite severe and you feel really weak
and they knew coming back then you do
need to take a few steps back and take
two
approximately two weeks to build back up
to full steam again moderating the
intensity using heart rate is the best
way to go and you'll feel when you're
returning to normal because your
pre-illness training paces and heart
rate will match up so when you're
training to heart rate just after being
ill you will be slower than you were
before you haven't lost Fitness it's
just your body working through and
getting rid of the loss of that illness
and in particular if it's a viruses
post-viral fatigue and if you train that
way you put yourself at low risk for
re-infection at low risk for for cardiac
damage and you will return quite quickly
so generally you bounce back really fast
the exception to that rule is the the
the c word
um so if you if you do pick up covert it
becomes very important to train two
heart rates and that sometimes takes
longer not in all all cases
90 percent of covert cases are resolved
completely within two weeks and you will
return to pre-covered
levels
um you know your heart rate and Pace
matching up within two weeks is a small
percentage that go beyond that
sorry talking talking about illness um
Linds while you're on
um but ghani's got a question you're
saying resting resting after a marathon
does it literally mean you do you don't
do anything
um and I guess some people are
qualifying some people are training
marathons let's let's just uh yeah give
the definition between the two there so
look if you run a training marathon and
you run it at at the absolute fastest
planned comrades pets you'll be training
normally carry on the next week no issue
if you write Samaritan you're going to
be sore typically
48 hours is the peak of that soreness if
you are a first time Marathon you've
really rested that can that can be day
four
um but for most people it's day two and
that's why I'd say at least three days
of nothing
from day four you can start doing some
alternate forms of exercise like cycling
swimming very light strength training
um and after a week you can get back to
it and start running again so one is if
you're racing the other one is if you do
it as a pure training run you can
probably just keep on going if it's your
first race you don't want to you
definitely don't want to start running
until that Peak
um pain passes in other words the legs
start to feel better so if that's at day
two and you're feeling better on on day
three then I'd say day five six or seven
you can probably go out for a light jog
if that day is day four and you only
start feeling better on day five then it
would be day nine or ten that I would
start running again but before that you
can do some cross training
awesome thank you I know we we are sort
of finishing up on time but but let me
try squeezing one or two this is
definitely novice webinars I want to ask
these questions
um morta's asking yeah please can you
tell us about the cutoff points and
times so we can start working towards
those now especially because the
finishes will likely be up in in batch H
and starting on the back foot and just
to follow on with that um zukila is
asking you know the race starts at 5 30
but since we're in the last batches what
happens to the cutoff times if you only
cross the line at 5 50. so how should
novice writers be tackling these kind of
times from now should they be thinking
about that I'll have a look now and see
if the cutoff times are on the comrades
website but they often change one or two
of those points
um
so
yeah the limits and cut-offs so if you
go on to the comrades website race info
rules and info you can scroll down and
you will get
um you'll get all the cutoff times the
runoff the the running time the time of
day kilometers to go kilometers that so
you can go on there get that
um and you can start planning ahead for
that so absolutely a good idea
um and to answer the second question
it does impact so because we don't want
Runners screaming out of
the start in a full-blown panic and
trying to make up the 8 to 12 minutes so
you won't lose 20 minutes at the start
you'll lose a maximum of 12 minutes
um
but you do need to make it up so
comrades has factored that in and so
effectively they only expect you to make
up a little bit a little bit a little
bit a little bit a little bit and only
have made up the full-time actually
right towards the end so it is factored
in that you're going to lose that
however you don't get given an extra 12
minutes so if you take eight minutes
across the finish line that means that
you've got 11 hours and 52 minutes to
finish comrades and in my very last
webinar honestly everyone who's on this
webinar needs to register for the next
webinar because my very last webinar I
will tell you how to save 15 to 20
minutes on race day and that is critical
for people who are starting in h batch
it's very important for people starting
in G batch
awesome yeah so register for that okay
uh Nikki I'm gonna ask you your last
question then uh Linds I'll ask you your
last question I know we've got a little
bit over the 30 minutes here and then we
can we can call it from there so Nikki
um Mandela's asking please can you also
advise about supplements um which one
should I use if if there is uh yeah
that's the interesting one and it's not
a quick one so an episode
um thanks for that but it all depends on
the the goal of which you're struggling
with so if recovery is a problem and
that's what you're struggling with I
would do a recovery supplement which is
usually a carbohydrate protein mix if it
is energy that you're struggling with
that you just need to get more energy
into the body that you can't keep up
that will be a meal replacement and then
if it's a supplement whilst on the road
that would be a car predominant
supplement so we're gonna have to have a
little bit more detail about this to
determine what the goal is with the
supplement use
awesome thanks Nikki uh yeah last point
from you Nikki before we say goodbye to
you anything you you want to say um what
I want to say I just don't underestimate
what training the gut means for your day
on Commerce day I really really want to
emphasize that train the way you're
going to run that day because the gut is
fully trainable so everybody that's
struggling with slushy stomachs stomach
aches stomach pains you have to train
until you don't feel those symptoms
anymore don't just stop the nutrition
because you feel it once and good luck
for everybody out there enjoy your
eating bye bye
awesome thank you Nikki
um Linds now I've lost that question but
I know what it was it was around you
know if if people are um oh you're here
Cerise is asking a similar one so she's
saying as training starts in March when
should when should someone who is just
aiming to finish
um plan to qualify there was another
question earlier around okay well you
know I haven't yet qualified qualifying
ends in May but when should I really be
getting this qualified and when is the
optimal kind of time so it does depend
on exactly when you decided to train for
comrades
um and how experienced you are as an
athlete so if you're a full-blown novice
and you only started training in January
you're probably looking at qualifying
quite late and I would say somewhere
between the middle of April and that
first week of May if you're a little bit
more experienced or you started this
process in June last year then you're
probably looking to qualify between now
and the middle of March so those are
kind of the two scenarios and there are
things in between again on the comrades
website and the the
coachperry.com literally step by step
and in that we'll give you a good idea
when you should qualify
um
you know when we're in the webinar ends
they're going to be directed to a page
that'll literally take them to the coach
Perry website look the advantage of
being on there is that if you fall
somewhere in between and you aren't
ready for a marathon and you need to
adjust the plan where you're going to go
to how you're going to get that advice
well you you'll get it on the on the
coach pay platform but really
that's why I I what I said is you want
to qualify as early as possible but the
most important thing is qualify when
you're ready because you only want to do
it once
so if you're aiming to finish the race
you don't want to put in that kind of
effort two or three times in the build
up so you want to make sure that you
actually genuinely ready to qualify
yeah
good stuff just a note on on the
upcoming webinars as Lindsay mentioned
um there these are all really really
important if I'm not mistaken the the
10th of May one is your your race prep
um on the 12th of April we've got a
woman's uh or ladies ladies seminar
which is going to be awesome
um but yes register for all of these
sorry then the 24th of May as your race
preferred sorry I missed that one but
either way you you are going to get
value from all of these so register for
them I think yeah as Lindsay said when
when this page closes you you will get
redirected to those pages you can also
get this information on the comrades
website so
um yeah from my side let me just say
thank you very much I always enjoy these
don't forget about your strength
training it's it's one of those things
that doesn't you don't necessarily
always see the benefit straight away but
I can promise you that it's gonna it is
really going to change your race
um so yeah please please uh do that and
that free strength plan what will really
do you wonders as well okay lens yeah
I'm going to leave it with you last word
from you and and then you can call it
for us thank you
awesome yes thanks to all the speakers
and thank you very much to everyone for
joining us it was a really nice full
room lots of chatter in the the chat
loads of wonderful information you will
get a recording of this so if you can't
remember two and a half hours worth of
information you can watch it again and
as Adele said there is a lot of
information in here apparently there is
enough for you to finish third at
comrades which is like really awesome to
hear thanks a million to Adele for
coming in and inspiring us
um it's a great talk and good luck
everybody I'll see you on the road
hopefully see you at the road shows and
if we don't cross pods before make sure
you come and say hello to myself and the
team at the comrades Expo in Durban good
luck and enjoy