Comrades - Long Run to Freedom

Inspired by Nelson Mandela and his autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom", and limited by the desire not to get eaten, I did a thirty minute running in place workout while on Safari. Mandela did this to stay fit in his cell during his time in prison. I did it because anything that runs out here in the African bush instinctively is food to the predators. With just one more shake out run on the schedule, to be run in Durban, sans predators, all the speed workouts have been done and all the base-building miles have been logged. In February, 16 weeks to Comrades, I had already fallen behind…

This beauty spotted yesterday is predator to no one (except douchebag poachers)

A calf strain after a hill workout in last week of January set me back. It seemed a spontaneous injury, occurring during a easy pace mile right after finishing up all the hard stuff. Of course, it happened on the far side of the park and of course I didn’t bring my metro card. So I walked home, which probably made it worse. I monitored it each day, tested it a week later, but it took about two weeks to be back to normal. I substituted strength work in and used my now free time to look at my schedule in more detail, or should I say, my lack of schedule.

The Runner’s World plan says I should be running 18 mile long runs by February 8^th. That was just a week away and even if healthy, this would be a big jump in mileage. By my estimates, I wouldn’t be doing 18 mile runs until late February, and that’s if the calf injury didn’t set me back to much. So once again I turned to my trusty friend Google. Perhaps a new search would turn up a new result. It did.

I found an updated Comrades-specific training calendar for January to race day. It was created by Coach Lindsey Perry, the official Comrades Coach. It seems I misunderstood the training offered during my last search when I turned up the July to December bit. The January to May portion wasn’t published yet, but also, there were multiple versions of the training calendar based on your medal target. Ah yes- Bill Rowen.

To obtain the Bill Rowen medal, I’d need to finish in less than nine hours. This training calendar had speed workouts, which I wasn’t surprised about. But what did surprise me is how light the mileage/time was on the weekend workouts. It was much lighter than the RW plan, by a lot. Though the longest single run was about the same (5 hours/50k), RW's plan called for 4-hour and 5-hour runs back-to-back while Coach Perry's plan called for 2-hour and 3.75-hour runs. Huh ok, so who is right?  Enter Coach Mike.

We had been coaching runners for the Bear Mountain Endurance Challenge for a couple months now. Mike came up with the idea of creating a unique training season focusing on this tough event. I assisted in Brooklyn while he led in Manhattan. Though I do have trail running experience, I have no ultra marathon experience. One evening after work, I bought him a beer and picked his brain. We went over the two plans and their differences. We talked about my strengths and weaknesses. And he shared his experience with me. But all his ultras have been on the trail. Comrades is a road running event, so very different. Mike believes in volume and suggested that if my body could handle it, I should go for the volume-heavy plan. 

And that is what is at the core of any nicely tailored training plan. This one key concept- do what your body can handle, recover from, and be ready for the next workout. I preach this to all my runners and I build their training calendars with the same philosophy. Why was I straying for from this concept for my own event?

Quite frankly, the distance intimidated me. How do I work up to and prepare for that kind of mileage? And why do these two plans so widely differ? My brain was going in circles. Ok, let’s review what all plans, including Mike’s advice, have in common.

·         It’s all about endurance development

·         Max long run of 5 hours/50K is sufficient

·         Back to back long endurance building workouts are key

·         Speed work is not crucial, but is nice if my body can handle it

And now add in the concepts I know to be true.

·         Only do as much as you can and still recover from for the next workout

·         Strength work makes a difference

From this, I created a hybrid Frankenstein-like training plan that included serious speed work and weekend mileage that split the difference between the two extreme plans. I incorporated a new workout type, Long Slow Hills (LSH), as suggested by the Coach Perry plan. I cut out heavy weight leg strength days.  And I would reevaluate at the end of each week whether I felt the mileage should increase or decrease. Finally, I had a plan.

First long run included a couple hours with summer season & Bear Mountain teams, then an extra hour solo.

I hit my first 18 mile run on March 7^th, a full month later than scheduled.  That weekend was also my first long back to back, totaling 32.4 miles in two days. The following weekend I did 3.5 hour and 2 hour runs totaling 35.8 miles. Following that, I pulled off a 2 hour and 4 hour run weekend which included a 13.1 mile EZ run and the VA Beach Marathon.

I did the marathon at an EZ pace rather than racing as I wanted to, worried that I would not come anywhere close to my goal and would just blow out my legs in an attempt, forcing a long recovery period and lost time. I was happy with my decision and my training seemed to be on a good track.

Beers and Beaches at Virginia Beach

But then a few days later on an EZ run from midtown to Ditmas Park, by calf tightened up into a knot… 

Again… ugh…