2016 Comrades Marathon Online Seminar - October 2015
Below is the first of our 2016 Comrades Marathon online training seminars.
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Transcription
BRAD BROWN: There we go, good morning to you and welcome to the first of our 2016 Comrades Marathon online training seminars, this is the October 2015 edition and the first one we’re doing in the build-up to the 2016 Comrades Marathon. It’s just amazing to see in the comments where everyone is joining us from, from all around the world today. Its 11:00 in the morning in South Africa. Lindsey Parry is in Johannesburg, I’m in Johannesburg for this one as well but we’ve got people from all over the globe joining us this morning. Welcome and thank you so much for taking time out to first of all register for this training seminar and also to join us live on the call today as well. It’s awesome to have you on board. We’re going to be running through the presentation today, there’s going to be lots of time for questions as well and I just wanted to run through some formalities and some housekeeping and just do a quick introduction of who we are and what we do.
I’m Brad Brown; I’m a very average runner but just really passionate about running and passionate about the Comrades Marathon. I’ve grown up in a family that is Comrades mad. My dad’s done 11, I think my brother’s going for number 5 or number 6 next year and I’m going back as well, so that’s who I am and joining us today as well is Comrades Marathon coach Lindsey Parry. Lindsey, good morning to you. Welcome, thanks for taking the time to join us today.
LINDSEY PARRY: Awesome Brad, good to be doing the webinars again and welcome to everybody.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome. Just to let you know how all this is going to work and what you’re going to learn today we’re going to run through exactly what you need to be doing right now from a fitness and training perspective across the board, so whether you’re aiming for a finish and I don’t want to say just a finish because finishing the Comrade Marathon is actually amazing but if you’re aiming for a Vic Clapham, between 11 and 12 hours right down to silver medal we’ll be able to help you on this seminar today as well.
We’ll also then look ahead to the next 4 weeks what you should be doing across the board in those various spectrums as well and then there’s going to be lots of time for you to ask questions and make comments and all you need to do is, if you haven’t checked it out yet, in that control panel of the software that we’re using for this online seminar, there’s a place for you to ask questions. If there are links in that mentioned as well, there’s a chat bar that I will be popping info in there throughout this seminar as well, so that’s all coming up today and I think I’m going to hand over to Lindsey Parry right now because he’s the man that you’re all here for today. Lindsey, let’s talk about where people should be right now from a training perspective. Some people say: Hey, it’s October, why are we even talking about Comrades Marathon? It is a long term commitment and truthfully you should be laying the groundwork now if you want to succeed in 2016.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, correct. Look, with all these things it does depend on what medal you are aiming for, it depends on your level of expertise, or not expertise, your level of experience but effectively this is kind of a part of the year where we want to have people consistent working towards a goal and this is kind of the time of the year where we’re working towards first half marathons, first 32’s, marathons for the faster guys but you do by October, you kind of want to be into a routine. This is pretty much all about building that routine and laying down the consistency so that we can build up that body that’s ready for the training come January, February, March, April next year.
BRAD BROWN: Brilliant stuff. Lindsey, let’s talk about what the focus should be on right now.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, so I think that I covered quite nicely now but we’re really focusing on laying down consistency and some of the things I’m going to mention now you’ll see reoccur a little bit when we split them down into the different medals but focusing now is get consistent, build up slowly, make sure that you don’t have any injuries, work on your weaknesses now so that they don’t become a problem later and when is it too late to start training for Comrades? Well look, this depends entirely on your actual level of experience but I would say that if you are an absolute novice to running, now is really getting into the time where if you haven’t started training or you don’t think about starting now, you’re going to have trouble coming Comrades.
If you’ve done Comrades before, you’re a more experience dathlete you want to be training consistently by January. You can get away with being lazy now but what you also do have to understand is that if you don’t train properly for probably 9 to 10 months of the year fairly consistently you will struggle to really improve your Comrades because you’ll always be starting from ground zero if you let more than 3 or 4 months of no activity get put together.
BRAD BROWN: Lindsey, I have to laugh when you talk about when is it too late to start. I mentioned at the start of the seminar that I come from a Comrades family, my dad’s done 11 and all the old school Comrades guys will tell you it’s October, why are you even bothering now, you can start training in January but obviously if you want to have a good day out you want to start sooner rather than later, particularly building up the groundwork if it’s your first one and you’re going for a finisher’s medal, what should you be doing right now?
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, so the finishers are the guys that are most risk to injury, they’re also quite often the largest group of the novices so these okes are really laying their foundation, they’re getting consistent, making sure they’re getting their 4 days a week of running, creating their routine and again because this group is so, or they’re normally the least biomechanically efficient, highest risk of injury they want to be identifying where are my strengths and weaknesses so they can get into a gym or do a home-based strength program so they’re not just working on building up their fitness but they also make sure that there’s not underlying complications that are going to cause them problems down the line, problems with flexibility or imbalances in strength between 2 different legs, that sort of thing and I guess for those guys they want to be somewhere in the region of 30, 35, 40, that’s sort of the amount of kilometers but I think we’re going to cover that in what should we be doing section.
You don’t want to build up too quickly for these guys; patience is key, consistent running with no pain and just really slowly building up over time and if you build up slowly enough your body should actually naturally build up strength that is required for running and for you to do your longer distances.
BRAD BROWN: All right, let’s move on to bronze, yes.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes cool, so if we move into the bronze medal, typically slightly more experienced runners, definitely slightly better runners, mostly have some aptitude to running, slightly lower risk of injury, so these guys I already start and say: Right, are you on the right program because a lot of people go onto the websites and the thinking is: Okay, I just want to finish Comrades so if I train for an 11 hour that’s going to guarantee that I get my medal and in fact it’s not necessarily going to do that. What it’s probably going to do is mean that you over train, get injured and break down so have a look at where, if you’re not running a sub 4 and a half hour marathon or you can’t run a sub sort of 2.10, 2.05 to 2.10 at least 21 K then you must accept that it’s going to be difficult for you to follow this program and to get your number.
For the most part if you’re on the right training program then I like to encourage everybody, not just the 9 to 11 hours guys, but everybody to look at getting their qualifying in this year because it means that you can put it in a concerted effort, do a good training program, run the fastest marathon possible for you and it means that next year we can just focus on the business of training for Comrades and we don’t have to run a hard marathon to improve seeding and compromise our training and potentially get injured so right now bronze guys, make sure you’re on the right program, get a decent plan in line for a marathon and be realistic in your goals and that’s linked to part 1 of this, is don’t set your sights on something that you’re not capable of because it’s going to end in disappointment but more likely in injury or illness.
BRAD BROWN: Right and you’ve mentioned consistency as well and this is pretty much across the board, is getting those habits in place and making sure you’re laying the groundwork. Lindsey, let’s get onto the Bill Rowan now, the guys and girls who are aiming for a sub 9 hour. I know you said it so often, it’s your favorite medal out of all the Comrades medals but before we get into what they should be doing, now why do you reckon this is your favorite?
LINDSEY PARRY: Well, because this is getting into the kind of area where you’ve got people that are showing a reasonable aptitude for running and before they had the Bill Rowan you were either silver medalist under 7 and a half hours or you got a bronze and I think there were a lot of pretty talented runners, if you’re running between 7 and a half hour, 8 hours you are a talented runner but weren’t really getting recognition for their ability, so what I like about it is the fact that there’s people now that get rewarded for their efforts, that are on close to silver but not quite there, but also right on the outer edges there’s this group of people that are running somewhere between 8.50 and 9.15 and if they put in the right kind of effort, plan their training smartly and I guess almost train as a silver medalist they can also get a Bill Rowan.
It’s a medal that’s achievable for quite a large number of people provided that A, they get the training right and B, that they execute very well on race day and I guess that’s the reason why I like the medal because it creates some incentive for people to improve their running because otherwise: You know what, if I’m running in a bronze if I run 7.50 then where’s my real motivation or if whether I run 8 hours 10 or 8 hours 50 or if I run 9 hours 45 or 10 and a half hours I get the same medal so it allows people to chip away and set themselves some goals and to continuously improve and strive for that very nice looking medal which is another reason why I like it, very cool colors.
BRAD BROWN: Lindsey, who should be going for this?
LINDSEY PARRY: So Bill Rowan runners or people who tend to be going for it tend to be more experienced athletes, full stop, so we don’t get a lot of people who just take up running for Comrades and then suddenly realize: Hang on, I’m good enough for a Bill Rowan, so this tends to be the crowd of people that are into their park runs, 10’s maybe the odd 21 but they’re actually running pretty good times so they’re running around about the 90 minute to 1 hour 40 mark, maybe can push that out to 1.45 but that’s pretty good running, so they’ve got a bit of speed, they’ve got a bit of experience or they’ve come from the: I’ve run a 10 hour, I’ve run a 10.15, now I’ve run a 9.45, now I’ve run a 9.20 and then they want to take the next step, so kind of where you are now does depend a lot on where you fall on that continuum and if you are moving up from half marathons you want to be a little bit more cautious in building up your mileage and if you fall in the 10 and a half hour barrier and you’re coming down or you’ve gotten yourself from 10 and a half to 9 and a half you still want to be a little bit careful because you don’t want to pick up the niggles.
Right now you should be in pretty serious training for a marathon but I think what, and the reason I’ve put there: More is not always better, is because a lot of people, particularly those moving from a bronze program to the Bill Rowan will just think that if they throw more running at the problem they’re going to become better runners and often it’s more about being smarter in your training than just necessarily doing more and our goals in 2015 are we want to run a good marathon, we want to run under 3 and a half hours or get close enough to it that we know we’re on the right path and that next year, even if we don’t run the actual 3 and a half that we’re in better shape than we were when we ran 3 and a half so we’ve got that confidence to know that: I’ve got the right metrics, I can do this 3 and a half hour marathon which means I can get my 9 hours at Comrades.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome. Lindsey, let’s look at the proper racing snakes, the sub 7 and a half hours. These are the guys and girls that are in the real sort of small part of the Comrades field, I think less than 5% of the Comrades field get a silver medal so you’ve got to be pretty special to get one of these. Who should be going for silver?
LINDSEY PARRY: Look, these are good runners so these are talented athletes, they’re at the absolute minimum are running under 40 minutes for 10 kilometers, they’re running around 85 minutes at the very least for a half marathon and they’re scratching at 3 hour in a marathon and certainly at sea level you want to be under 3 hours so we’re talking about good runners. Good runners that have got a lot of time and that’s something that people don’t understand, is like silver takes a huge time commitment and you really need to be able to put in the hours. You’re going to be running at least 120 K’s a week when we get into the peak training weeks and some people go as high as 160, 170, your very fast silvers, your 6.15 to 6.30 guys are probably going to be running somewhere in the region of 170 to 180 K’s a week.
Understand that you’re making a big time commitment, you are going to be tired so you are going to have to curtail parties and that sort of thing because your sleep and your recovery is just so important in you being able to hold your body together so that you can get in the training and there are probably in the region of somewhere between 600 and 900 runners that run under 3 hours, so they come to Comrades with an A seeding but we don’t even see a third of those guys actually nailing that silver medal so it just does show you that 5 minutes a K for 89 kilometers is a hell of an undertaking, so big time commitment, recovery is critical and that ties straight into why a fast marathon now, because recovery is such a critical key and if you aren’t really in shape for a marathon now, when are you going to get in shape for that marathon?
Traditionally that’s been February, maybe March but we really want to train hard, silver medal March and April are absolutely critical, you don’t want to qualify at the end of February with your sub 3 and be forced into 2 or 3 weeks of recovery and then start up, so where are we now with the silver medal? Well, we should be getting into the last either 4, 6 or 8 weeks depending on which marathon you’ve chosen but you’re in the sharp end of marathon training.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome stuff. Lindsey, that’s brilliant. We’ve run through where you should be right now for the various medals. A lot of people have joined since we started, if you have just joined us, welcome, it’s good to have you with us. If you have got any questions please feel free to pop them into the question bar. Also still to come we’re going to be running through what you need to be doing for the next 4 weeks for each of those medal bands and then we’ll also be sharing a phenomenal Comrades resource with you that will definitely help you get your medal in 2015.
Just running through some of the questions to see if there’s anybody with a question that is related to exactly where we should be right now. Danny in Atlanta, how’s it Danny, nice to have you on. He said for many people these early months for your training programs are way less than we’re currently running, especially in the fall marathon season and obviously Danny is in the northern hemisphere, he’s talking about the fall being autumn in North America at the moment. He wants to know how do you suggest someone who’s using one of your programs, fits in a marathon whose maybe towards the bottom end of the scale finishes medal or a bronze. Lindsey, how would they fit in one of those marathons now?
LINDSEY PARRY: So look, if you’re experienced and you’ve run a a couple of marathons and you’ve got a fairly good idea of what gets you into good shape for a marathon, then I probably wouldn’t change too much of that. Remember that I do take quite a minimalistic approach on these Comrades programs because really one of my, well my primary goal is to get people across the finish line but very strongly aligned to getting people across the finish line is making sure that people don’t get injured, so it is a little bit, not quite a minimalist approach, that’s overstating a little bit but yes, they are a little bit light on mileage but it’s because in South Africa in particular so many people take up the sport of running because they want to run 89 K’s, not because they enjoyed 5 and then enjoyed 10 and then enjoyed 21, so if you have a program, you’ve got a good idea of how that gets you into good shape, then I would stick to that.
Of course if you like the program and the way that it’s structured and the problem is more a question of when the marathon is placed because I’ve put it a bit later in the year and in the northern hemisphere its just getting too cold, really, to be outdoors and racing marathons, then as long as there is some sort of running going on and you have a bit of a base and you are a regular runner, then all I would do is leave out the earlier parts of the program, so in other words, I would take my date as the marathon being the 5th of December, I’d work backwards 12 weeks or 8 weeks, depending on how much time you’ve got to that particular marathon and then I would use those weeks leading into the marathon and leave out the stuff that’s gone before it.
BRAD BROWN: Lindsey, interesting question from Jason. Jason said his wife is due to give birth to their first baby in December, should he still enter?
LINDSEY PARRY: Well, it depends how involved you plan on being when the baby arrives. That’s such a difficult question to answer because I’ve got 2 kids of my own now and I’ve seen how disruptive that can be to your training. Look, if you have an easy kid, there’s no problem at all. If your kid starts sleeping through from 4 months it means you’ll be dossing by about March and you’ll be hitting the hard training, sorry I shouldn’t use words like ‘dos’ for the international, its if you’re sleeping straight through, but it is a risk because if you do have a little oke or a little girl that doesn’t feed properly and needs to wake up 4 times a night and you’ve got to be up and you’re not getting proper sleep, then it becomes incredibly difficult, so it is a little harder to manage.
I also find that from about 3 months depending on the child, but from about 3 months you can probably start running with them in a jogging pram and they enjoy that and they sleep very well, so buy them a little neck brace from 3 to about 6 months and my kids love that and of course because they grew up doing it, they love it now. I often find them demanding that I take them for a run in the big pram because it’s now a double. There are options available to you but obviously every home situation is unique and it will add an extra stress trying to raise a tiny little baby and train for Comrades.
BRAD BROWN: Yes Jason, as much as Lindsey and I would love to give you an answer, it think the person you need to ask is probably your wife, that would be my advice and then a quick one before we get into our next sort of set of what you should be doing over the next 4 weeks. It’s from Michael [Grispick?] in Detroit. Michael, I hope I pronounced your name correctly and I think it’s a fantastic question. Lindsey, he said: How do you prepare mentally for a race like Comrades, he’s afraid his mind might tell him to stop before the finish and I guess that’s probably one of the attractions of this race and that’s one of the things that everyone who takes on the Comrades Marathon has to overcome.
LINDSEY PARRY: Look, that is a real problem. I met with a client this morning and that’s effectively one of the questions he asked me and he’s done a whole lot of Comrades already, finished some, hasn’t finished others. In fact he’s dropped out of more than he’s finished but that was one of his problems that he struggles with, is that nothing prepares you for post-60 K’s. If you’ve done ultras before, nothing prepares you for how you’re going to feel post-60 K’s but that is the beauty and uniqueness of Comrades and unless you come from a 100 miler background, this is pretty much as far as most of us are going to run and there’s a couple of tricks that we do for that.
The first one is that by the time you’re ready to run Comrades you’ve already done an ultra or a long run that would be classified as an ultra if it was in a race, so you’ve already got the kind of mental edge that: Okay, I know I’m going to make it to 60 K’s and if you make it to 60 K’s you know you can make it to 70 and once you made it to 70, you kind of know that you can get those last 19 K’s done, so that’s the one aspect of it. The second aspect of it is that you’ve got this goal and you want to do this and you want to achieve it and you create a community around you, whether its family or friends or work colleagues or you’re on social media, but you create a community around you, people that are taking an interest in this, so while you’re going through the goal you don’t feel completely alone. A, you want to achieve the goal but B, you develop a little bit of a: I don’t really want to let people down, so that helps carry you through.
Thirdly, and we’ll go through this in a lot more detail closer to the race, we’ll put mechanisms in place for you, little mantras, sayings, things that you can fall back on, a bit of self-talk, these are the kind of things that will help you to get through the very difficult patch and it is difficult and around 60 K’s, 65, maybe 70 K’s if you’re lucky, you get this like serious questioning of: Why, what am I doing, but if you can keep yourself on the road for another hour, you suddenly find yourself with, you’re into single digits and you’ve only got 9 K’s to go and so we’re not talking about hours and hours of like: Oh my word, what am doing, how; its normally quite a short term mental struggle and if we give you the right tools just to keep you on the road for a little bit longer you will get through that and be fine on the other side.
BRAD BROWN: And for some of us it is hours and hours, Lindsey. You’re not out long enough to know what some of us go through, but let’s get back onto what you should be doing over the next 4 weeks and lets start with those guys and girls that are aiming for a Vic Clapham, the sub 12 hour, 11 to 12, what should they be looking at right now, Lindsey?
LINDSEY PARRY: So we’re building on the consistency, hopefully guys have started but if they haven’t, then now is the time where we want to build that consistency. In the southern hemisphere anyway it’s getting much easier for us to train so hopefully in the northern hemisphere the guys are in the groove so that as its getting colder and darker, that they can maintain that consistency and build on it and in the southern hemisphere it’s just getting easier and easier now to train, so build that consistency, get into a routine. We’re aiming for these guys to be at around the 35, 40, 45 K mark and don’t be in a hurry to do too much now. There will be some warhorses in your club telling you you’ve got to run 80 K’s a week for Comrades, maybe and maybe we will get you to that come March and April but for now, all we want to do is to know that we’ve got our fixed routine going and we run on these days and our total weekly mileage is scratching around the 40 to 45 K mark.
BRAD BROWN: Right, let’s move on to the bronze medals, the 9 to 11 hours.
LINDSEY PARRY: So these guys are building up to a marathon so all the medals from here, and I haven’t repeated every point for all the medals because the things that I say are probably useful for many people but we’re focusing on a marathon because if we can get that qualifier out of the way it takes off a lot of pressure, gives you a lot of confidence but as I mentioned before, it really gives us a bit of time to focus on training next year. You’ve got to be realistic about what goal you’re going to go for in that marathon and here I also tell people: Add your strength training now if you haven’t done it. It’s good to have strength training for the down run, it’s going to help protect you from injury and its definitely going to help you from the eccentric load of the down run, and the reason I say add it in now-ish is because we want you to be used to the strength training come February, March and April.
We don’t want you adjusting to a higher and higher training loads and sore muscles from strength work and very importantly, if there are any injuries don’t drag these through the year with you. Get them sorted out, figure out why you are injured, get it sorted out and then finally we’re aiming in this group for a comfortable marathon to be in the region of 50 to 60 kilometers a week, and look, I appreciate that there will be people that will be able to do more and that have done more and done well on marathons and that’s fine, but this is 50 to 60 K’s a week, its people that are going for their first marathon but they’ve shown a bit of an aptitude for running and we’re building them up slowly and ensuring that they can run a marathon and finish it without too much damage.
BRAD BROWN: Right, let’s move on to the Bill Rowans, the 7 and a half to 9 hours.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, so these guys are getting quite serious. I mean, they are going to be training pretty hard for a marathon, 3 and a half hours nothing to sneeze at, at marathon level, so they need to start figuring out how to manage their fatigue and with the silver guys I spoke about making sure you’re getting enough sleep, possibly looking at things like compression garments or ice bars or massage, that sort of thing, making sure you eat properly, but you are training hard now. How tired are you, how do you know when it’s the right time to back off from training or continue with training and for me, I find any fatigue and I’m talking about muscular fatigue and like just feeling really rubbish on a run, any fatigue that is for one, so it’s more of an anomaly, you have maybe one run a week where you feel like that, that’s cool.
Two runs in a row where you’re feeling like rubbish, that’s not good, 3 runs, if you even get that far, means that you really have to consider adjusting your training load and considering you’re on the right program and one of the actual nice tricks you can use is, when you start it’s okay to have tired legs but as you run, if it feels a bit better and 15 to 20 minutes into the run you actually start to feel quite nice, that’s kind of normal fatigue. We can’t expect to get through a hard block of training with no fatigue at all and then these guys, look they’ll be from a mileage point of view, I’m jumping ahead of my point here, but from mileage point of view we’re probably looking in the region of 70 to 90 kilometers a week and we’re starting to scratch on the group where I encourage a bit of speed work to make that leap from just under 4 hours to 3 and a half hours, it requires hill work, it requires speed work and that’s probably part of the reason why you’re sitting in a situation where it’s difficult to manage your fatigue.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome, let’s go on to the racing snakes, the sub 7 and a half hours and I’m just looking in the questions, Lindsey, we’ve actually got a few with us today who are aiming for sub 7 and a half, there’s a few aiming for sub 7 as well, which is great and these guys are working really hard and recovery is very important at this stage for the next 4 weeks.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, and so I stressed it again and so for these guys now they should be in just about peak training for a marathon. Again the northern hemisphere guys are possibly even in recovery for a marathon, maybe they’ve just done Berlin or they’re thinking about doing Chicago or a more local race perhaps, but in the northern hemisphere the marathons are happening now, so yes, recovery is absolutely key when you are in full blown training and if we don’t recover properly we can’t do the hard training properly, we don’t do the hard training properly you’re going to struggle to hit the times in the marathon and I think this is probably the group that’s constantly pushing the boundaries, probably always running with some kind of discomfort or niggle and we’ve got to decide what constitutes an injury and what can I carry on training with and look, I group these into 3 categories, if you like.
The first one is: It’s causing me to limp, so in other words, the pain is severe enough that it actually changes my strike pattern, that’s a: You’ve got to stop training injury. Then: I’m uncomfortable but I can run pretty normal, and if I’m in that sort of scenario I can go: Okay well, does it get worse with each training session or is there a particular workout that I find irritates it a bit but then as I do the rest of the training it tends to get a little better through the week and if I’ve got one of those scenarios then I will manage myself with, or manage my athletes with a bit of ice treatment, try and remove the session that’s hurting them and as long as the injury is not progressing or getting worse with each dose, then we will probably continue through the training and use the taper to kind of get rid of that discomfort so you’re not dealing with that on race day.
The final kind of niggle that I look at is the niggle that’s there when you start running but then it goes away. Again, whether it’s an injury that needs like proper treatment or whether I stop training from, does it get worse with each dose, and importantly, if I run long enough does the pain come back, because then when you start looking at things like stress fractures [inaudible 00.32.32] fractures and we don’t want that, so if the pain, I run for 3, 4 minutes and the pain’s gone, I do my speed work, nothing seems to irritate it and post exercise it definitely doesn’t get worse or the next time I run it doesn’t get worse, those are the kind of things that I will train through because then it’s probably stiffness, it’ll ease off over the next couple of days but anything that progresses, gets sorer, even if I feel okay during training, that’s when I’ll stop the training and get proper treatment.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome stuff, and then you also mentioned speed training and the distances that they should be covering if they’re going for silver.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes look, you’re definitely doing some speed work because a part of running a fast marathon is really toughening up and being able to drive through those last 10 K’s with a fairly high degree of discomfort in your legs and speed training, besides making you faster, it toughens your legs up so it gives you that ability to hold rhythm, hold your technique together and to power through those last 10 K’s which are pretty tough in a marathon and look, its varied. We’re talking about people that are going for a sneaky sub 3 all the way to 2 hour 20 guys, people that are just about looking at gold medals at [inaudible 00.33.52] so the range is quite broad but yes, in the region of, I’d say for sub 3 hour unless you are an extremely talented runner you need to be hitting at least 90 K’s a week and you probably want to be closer to somewhere between 120 and 140 K’s a week.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome stuff. Lindsey, I just want to add in there and this is my 2 cents’ worth, where you talk about those injuries and the levels of injuries and seeking help, that doesn’t just apply to people who are running or aiming for a silver medal in 2016, that’s pretty much across the board, that if you’re struggling with a little bit of a niggle and it hurts your run, that advice applies to everyone.
LINDSEY PARRY: It does but I’m more, you see with the silver guys I understand that training at that level, there’s going to be a little niggle here and there but with the rest of the medals, Bill Rowan included, I believe that if you miss 2 or 3 days of training
but learn where that line is.
BRAD BROWN: Brilliant. Lindsey, let’s go on to a couple of questions, if you have got any questions all you need to do is pop them into the right hand side, there is a little question bar there. Here’s a great one, Lindsey, from Dale. He says, I’m not sure if Dale is a guy or a girl but Dale says: I’ve run a 9.06 and a 9.02 on the down and the up desperate to get your favorite Bill Rowan, any suggestions to fine tune that training? I mean, I don’t even know if that’s a training issue or if that’s a race, their time management issue. Lindsey, what would you reckon?
LINDSEY PARRY: Look, 2 minutes is not a training issue, 2 minutes is a race day nutrition or a on course management issue and to be honest, people are missing are those and Dale hasn’t given us quite enough information for me to be 100% certain of this but I’ve experience so many times that when people are missing their medals by that much, what it really boils down to is that they’ve got absolutely nothing in the tank and they are going backwards in the last 20 to 30 K’s and that’s just because they’ve gone too fast at the start of the race, so that’s the most common cause for people missing by 2 to 6 minutes. It’s not normally in the preparation and then some people just don’t get their nutrition right and that is something that is difficult to do over 89 kilometers, what to eat, when to eat it, how long can you eat sweet stuff and we’ll do a webinar that’ll address the nutrition side specifically but honestly, for me to give Dale like an answer that will be useful to him I need to know what his marathon time was, I need to know what time he’s going through halfway. Perhaps he’s another one of the guys that’s coming from living and training in an extremely cold place and then you get hit with 30 degree temperatures, so there are a lot of things that can account for it, but 2 to 6 minutes is probably we need to spend a little bit of time together and talk through race day. I’m pretty sure we can find those minutes.
BRAD BROWN: Lindsey, 2 questions from 2 different people but along the same sort of lines. The first one is from [Mdowande?] and [Mdowande?] wanted to know: Is it critical to have the correct running shoes, I lose toenails every time I run more than 21 kilometers, and Jared was saying he’s on track according to your bronze medal program to run the Soweto Marathon, which is the first weekend in November as qualified. It will be his maiden marathon but he’s concerned that his shoes are past their best, they’ve got 1 200 kilometers in them, should he be looking to break in a new pair of shoes for that marathon ahead of Soweto or could he risk running Soweto in those shoes and possibly risk injury?
LINDSEY PARRY: So the first question, it’s important to be in the right pair of shoes but for me, what I’m hearing there it’s probably not necessarily that you’re in the wrong brand or type of shoe. If you’re losing your toenails its more likely that you are in a shoe or you’re either in a shoe that’s perhaps a bit small but it’s not the right size, or the type of socks that you’re wearing is like your toenails are catching on that sock, so it may be too much movement in between the foot and the shoe, so those are the 2 things that I would look at. It’s most likely a sizing issue but also if you’re comfortable in all other respects, comfortable and you’re enjoying the shoes, then I would just cut, the toes that are catching, just cut a hole in the shoe so that those toes are wiggling free and they don’t bang up against the front of the shoe or the toenail. What’s more likely is that the toenail catches the top of the shoe so if it’s the wrong size or too small or too, funny enough even if it’s too big because then there’ll be too much movement in your foot but you’ll be slamming up against the front of the shoe with your toes. Otherwise it could be a question of your toenails catching on the top of the shoe and if that’s the case, you just cut a hole out.
On to the more difficult question of should you get new shoes? Well, the easy answer is that yes, you should be in a new pair of shoes, those shoes on 1 200 K’s is starting to reach the upper limits of really what you should be doing, but having been into a sports shop recently and having a look at the price of running shoes, 1 800 bucks is pretty much, well it’s South African Rands so that’s 120…
BRAD BROWN: It’s about 4 Dollars…
LINDSEY PARRY: US Dollars, is what we’re paying for a pair. I mean, it’s a lot of money so the guy that I train with, he basically needs a new pair of shoes every month so that’s like a 2 grand commitment every month, so look, on the 1 200 I’d say yes, you do need to get yourself into a pair of shoes and I suppose a way that you could maximize the lifespan of shoes is like in a period like this now you get a new pair and run them in and you use those for your medium to long runs and you could carry on using your older pair on the shorter and easer runs and that way just get a few more K’s out of the old pair of shoes and save the new pair a little bit and those are the kind of ways we can get creative and stretch the life of our shoes.
BRAD BROWN: Right Lindsey, let me ask one quick one before we carry on, it’s from Jessica. How’s it Jessica, nice to have you on. She was saying she’s been following your finishers program from 2014 so she got the 2 years in her Comrades Marathon program, she wanted to start a month early so that’s why she did it. She didn’t come from a running background; she’s doing Kaapsehoop which is the second weekend of November here in South Africa, hoping to get her qualifier. She missed 3 weeks of training last month, though, and really battling to get back into it. Is it silly to attempt the qualifier, if not what training schedule should she revert to, and like I said Lindsey, just doesn’t come from a running background, she’s literally taken up the sport this year and set a goal, or taken it up seriously and set a goal to run Comrades. What would you suggest she does?
LINDSEY PARRY: Look, it’s very early for a marathon and it’s not the cleverest marathon to do as your first marathon, I’m afraid to say. It’s lots of downhill and I know that sounds nice and its attractive and it means you can run a faster marathon but the reality is that it’s hard on your body. For novices running Ou Kaapse Weg, a high degree of possibility of picking up injuries like ITB, shin splints, having long term issues so I wouldn’t advise it, it sounds a little bit soon for me for you in the first instance. In the second instance I think it will do a lot of damage so if it is a race that you’re going to go ahead and do I would put myself on a real walk/run strategy, loads of walking, protect your legs, especially on the downhill but yes, I would probably be looking closer to December or early January, so my biggest concern is that a lot of people wait until 28th February, 1st of March but if you can find a race the last week in January, first week of February, that’s not too bad. Then that’s okay.
BRAD BROWN: Yes and Jess, there’s lots of great marathons, I know you’re based in Joburg, there’s lot of great marathons in Joburg as well towards the end of January. I know Johnson Crane, as far as marathons go it’s a fairly easy one, its flat, its out on the East Rand, that’s a great one and a lot of people use that as their qualifier early on in the year so yes, I think that’s some great advice and yes, if you’re planning the weekend away go run the half marathon or go and run the marathon but like Lindsey said, do it really slowly and don’t put pressure on yourself to make sure that this is your only chance to qualify because it’s not. Let’s get back into what we wanted to cover today. Lindsey, we’ve mentioned marathons in the build up to this when people registered but I wanted to sort of, let’s look at what we’ll cover next month because I think it’s probably more important for us to cover that stuff in November because from a South African perspective that’s when a lot of people will by looking to qualify, that’s when, like we mentioned Soweto Marathon, Kaapse Hoop and that sort of thing, next month that’s when we’ll do the final run. Tell us a little bit about what we’ll chat about next month.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, so effectively next month we will look at our final run into the marathon so that effectively entails the taper, mostly what not to do rather than what to do. How do you set an appropriate goal for the marathon so: How do I use the training I’ve done with some other distances that I’ve run to make sure that I set myself up for realistic goal and I don’t go too fast and that I pace myself well, and then managing your first marathon and that will cover quite a broad scope, that’s like the actual pacing, having a little look at nutrition, tips to use to keep yourself motivated on the road and what to do when things get a little tough and then importantly, recovery post-marathon because that’s going to set us up for next year and that’s going to make sure that we don’t have any injuries, so very important part of the road show.
BRAD BROWN: Okay, so that’s what we’re going to be looking at in the next Comrades online seminar which will be happening the first week of November, as soon as this one’s done we’ll put the registration page up and you can get signed up for that one but I wanted to share a couple of Comrades resources with you that I think are pretty important and will definitely help you on your Comrades journey to 2016 because let’s be honest and I’m going to add quite a bit here because committing to Comrades is scary, particularly your first one. When you’re starting to train and you think: Gee, how am I going to run 89 kilometers when I’m struggling to run a half marathon right now? It is really tough and making that commitment is a big commitment and then what you do is you end up going online and chatting to people and there’s so much conflicting information out there. I mean everyone and his dog seems to be a Comrades coach nowadays.
Lindsey is fantastic; he’s not going to tell you how great he is so I will. I mean, if you don’t know Lindsey coached CarolineWostmann last year, she was the first South African ladies winner for many, many years at Comrades. She did the double as well, the Old Mutual Two Oceans and Comrades, which hasn’t been done in like, forever. Lindsey, there’s few coaches in the world that can coach both spectrums of athletes. I mean, there’s many guys that can coach really good world-class athletes and there’s many guys that can coach the average sort of guy like me, but there’s only a handful that can do both and Lindsey is definitely one of those and the important thing to know is you’re not alone, that you’re going to have thoughts of: Can I do this or I’m crazy doing this and there’s no way that I can do this, you’re not alone. Everyone goes through those sort of mental processes and it’s important to know that.
How do you know that, that’s the big question as you sit and suffer in silence alone on these training runs where you think about these things and the doubts that everyone has in their minds but it’s difficult to really figure out if you are alone and imagine if you could find a place where you connect with other runners who are at the same stage with you and chat to them about the struggles you’re going through. You can also get access to the most up to date information because training methods do change and information changes with time as well, and imagine getting it straight from the source because often you’re joining a running group where someone tells someone something and then it just gets passed down the line and by the time its gets to you it’s so diluted and late that you’re getting the info at a time that’s not appropriate but you’re also not getting the exact sort of info you should be getting.
The big question is why do people fail when they run Comrades and I think that’s probably one of the biggest questions that needs to be answered if you are struggling with sort of getting your head around this and should you be doing it, and the first thing is some people never really commit and I’m going to share something with you in a moment about my story that probably sums that up and yes, entering the race is one thing but if you have that doubt in the back of your mind where you’re thinking: You know what, maybe if I just train we’ll see what happens, you really need to put your heart and soul into this thing.
Another reason they don’t is because they try and wing it, they don’t have a system or a training program that they’re following to the T and the get information from various source and they try and tailor-make it. The best bit of advice I could give you is: Find one training program, whoever it is, whether it be Lindsey’s training program or if it’s someone else’s and stick to that training program. Don’t deviate from it, don’t ask anyone else for advice, commit to someone who’s going to coach you or give you a training program and that’s what you stick to throughout your training.
A lot of people don’t have access to relevant and timely information, it’s all good and well if you’re in the buildup to your Comrades Marathon qualifier in November and you only get told at the end of December what you should be doing in that qualifier, so timely information is very important and a lot of people don’t have access to someone who can help them, so that’s pretty important too and touched on the conflicting information, particularly when you’re working with various people giving you advice, so if one person’s giving you a training program and someone else is giving you a pacing strategy, obviously they need to be aligned and that’s why it’s important to really listen to one person and commit to following the advice of one person, so I wanted to just dive into a little bit of my journey and explain how I came to being here because I’m no running guru by any stretch of the imagination.
In 2009 I decided I was going to run Comrades. Some of you may have heard my story already, some of you may have not but I was 165 kilograms at the time. If you convert that sort of international its 360 pounds, so I was way overweight, decided I was going to run Comrades and I started training and I was the test-tube baby for doing everything wrong. I ran through injuries, I didn’t do enough training, I spoke to, I probably got lots of conflicting information, I spoke to my dad who was a pretty good runner, he ran a sub 9 hour Comrades and here’s someone coming from that sort of range who just was getting the wrong information.
I didn’t have a program; I sort of just ran how I felt. If I was sore I didn’t run as far as I thought I should run, if I was feeling good I went longer and I did it on my own as well. I didn’t join a running club, I joined what they call a paper club that you get a license from and I was not part of a community, I was literally on my own and I thought I knew everything. I was very arrogant going into my first Comrades. A year later, and let me tell you what happened, I ended up missing one of the cutoffs and didn’t finish the race. A year later I decided I was going back and I was going to seriously commit and I talk about committing fully. In the buildup to 2009 I kept saying to myself whatever happens I will be fitter on race day than I was a year before, which is probably a good thing to say but I always had it in the back of my mind that failure was an option.
A year later in 2011 there was no option, I was going back to get my medal and I fully committed. I ended up using one of Lindsey’s training programs, I asked no one else for advice and I followed that thing to the T. If Lindsey said to me I need to run 20 kilometers or I needed to run for 2 hours, that’s exactly what I did. If he said to me halfway through I needed to do 12 cartwheels, I would have done 12 cartwheels, that’s exactly what I did. I also found a community I could join, I found the running club and found people that I was really sort of connected to and were on the same journey and what happened was I succeeded, I ended up finishing and got my medal in 2011, so went back eventually a year later and got there.
We’ve created a Coach Parry online community that we’d love you to be part of and what we’re going to be doing, just to give you a bit of a rollout plan between now and Comrades and obviously this is going to be ongoing past Comrades 2016 as well, but we’re going to be doing one of these sort of Comrades online seminars once a month, so this the first one that will be happening, the first week of the month every single month between now and Comrades race day in 2016. In May we’ll probably end up doing a second one, so we’ll do one at the beginning of the month, one halfway through the month. There’s just lots of info that we need to get to you in that month before Comrades. There’s also regular online running seminars that aren’t Comrades related so Lindsey alluded to that with regards to nutrition but there’s going to be lots that we’re going to be doing.
One of the big things and one of the big questions that we get asked very often is around nausea, how do you stop nausea; we’ll be doing one of these specifically on nausea. We also get asked lots about cramps, we’ll be chatting about running shoes, just general running stuff that’s not related to Comrades that, doesn’t matter what stage you’re at, you’re definitely going to get lots of value out of, and then what we’re also going to do is regular online lunch hour Q and A’s with Lindsey. Lindsey’s time is pretty limited, he coaches some amazing athletes, I mentioned Caroline Wostmann but he also trained some of our top triathletes here in South Africa. He’s also Triathlon South Africa’s high performance coach, so it’s difficult to get a sort of one on one with him but I’ve manage to twist his arm that he’s going to be doing a couple of these over the next few months where its literally an opportunity for you to get online with him with a small group of people where you can physically ask Lindsey questions one on one with exact stuff that you are struggling with.
There’s also an exclusive member’s forum, that’s one thing we’ve also discovered, that people want to be able to ask questions and often these sort of platforms, the online seminars, it’s not possible to get to all the questions so it’s difficult. There’s some great Facebook groups but again, there’s lots of conflicting information on there and you want to get it straight from the source and is difficult to find answers to previous questions in those sort of platforms, so we’ve created an exclusive member’s forum as well and then there’s also access to all the recordings of all these online seminars that we do, as well as transcripts and audio sort of things. This is what it looks like and we’re launching it at the moment, that’s obviously the home page, there’s a little bit about Lindsey, you can go check it out and the podcasts, if you listen to the Ask Coach Parry podcasts, they remain exactly the same except they’re going to be living on this website as well that’s what’s there at the moment.
The good news is you can cancel at absolutely any time, there’s no risk at all. If you decide that the info that you got this month really wasn’t worth what you’ve paid for it, there’s absolutely no risk, you can drop us a mail, you can pick up the phone and call us, we won’t bill you ever again and you can cancel at absolutely any time. How much does it cost, that’s the big question. For all this exclusive members only content, and just so you know, these live webinars, we’re going to be doing them live but unfortunately seating is limited on these live ones. If you want access to the recordings and I know the times aren’t always suitable to everyone and we’re never going to get everyone happy with regards to the times, if you want access to the exclusive members only content, those lunch hour Q and A’s are exclusive content, the forum is exclusive content and you get limited access to Lindsey as well.
You’ll also get access to the entire library of the online webinars, so everything that we’ve done will live there and you can access that at any time at your convenience, the members only forum as well that Lindsey will be popping on there every now and again to answer your individual questions, and then the members replays of these webinars as well, that’s available. We’re charging R147 per month, that’s what it’s going to cost ongoing and we’re going to run a bit of a special offer for you guys and girls that joined us today and its only available until 13:00 South African time so that’s an hour from now, so for the next hour we’re locking it in at R97 per month, so every single month you will be billed but for as long as you stay a member you’re locked into that price. It’s our launch price, you will never see a price increase and it’s available only to you guys that are on the webinar right now. If you cancel at some stage and you want to come back, you’ll pay the price that is at that time, so I can tell you this is the lowest it will ever be, so if you want to get involved, now is definitely the time.
Why do you want to be part of this community? I mean, ongoing support is pretty important, you’re also going to get training that you’re not going to get anywhere else, that’s the truth of the matter. You’ll also get access to some of the best running experts in South Africa and globally and I can tell you that if you want a one on one session with Lindsey, just a consultation, that’s not even training program, just to chat to him you’re looking at about between R500 and R600 per hour, that’s what Lindsey is going to charge you to do that. These online webinars, in previous years we’ve charged R100 per webinar so every webinar that you wanted, you had to pay R100 for the replay and the webinar. Obviously that’s going to change now and we’d love you to be part of the online community.
I’m going to pop in a chat bar just with regards to where you can sign up right now and I don’t know why that’s showing but yes, I’m going to pop into the chat bar exactly, if you’d like to sign up where, the link you can get to right now to sign up and there it is right now, it is coachparry.com/membership-options, it’s in the chat bar and yes, for the next hour that page will be live and then after 13:00 it reverts to R147 per month, so if you want to get in I would suggest now is the time and yes, let’s get into some more questions. If you’ve got any questions, I know we’re running out of time but it is 12:00. Lindsey, I’m not sure if there’s anything you want to add before we get to a couple more questions?
LINDSEY PARRY: No, just that I’m really glad that we got the webinars kick started again, it’s a really good way to interact with a lot of Comrades runners and we will be doing it every month so yes, looking to sharing the journey with all of you over the next 7 to 8 months and congratulations on making the decision to run Comrades. One thing I did forget to put into the presentation was that of course it’s very important that you make the commitment. The only way to make a commitment is to enter the race so get onto the Comrades website, enter and then let’s walk this road together.
BRAD BROWN: Yes, absolutely and its comrades.com, by the way if you want to go and enter, that’s pretty important. You’re not going to run if you don’t enter. Let me look, see if there are a couple of other questions. I’ve popped that link, Barbara is saying she can’t see the link in the chat bar. Barbara, can you see it now, I have put it in there. I’m not sure if anybody else can see it or is struggling to see it. Let me know if you can. No, people are saying they can’t so you know what, let me put it in here and then send it to all, there we go. That should work it, there we go. Perfect, I’ve put it in there as well. Let me see if there’s any other questions. Got one in from Lesego, Lesego is saying: I recently qualified for Comrades 2016; it’s going to be the first Comrades through the City 2 City ultra, a time of 5.26. Should I perhaps look at improving my time with any upcoming marathons or is my qualifying time good enough for a comfortable Comrades finish?
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes look, I definitely wouldn’t be chasing a marathon time going forward now. I know that City 2 City was a unique challenge this year so you probably could have run a better time in a slightly better organized race but the risk of course if you go and chase a marathon now you’re going to have an issue, so recover now, do some training. If you find that as you progress over the next 6 to 8 weeks that your half marathon times, your 10K times are way better than your times, then its maybe worth looking at a marathon in January to get a slightly better seeding but your time as it is now, it’s good enough to get you onto the start line which means it’s good enough to get you to the finish line, so it’s not necessary to risk yourself by running another race hard, but certainly the option is there for a race in January, but I wouldn’t look later than that.
BRAD BROWN: Lesego, brilliant. Lindsey, I just want to make sure. I know we said we were going to go onto midday, have you got a couple of minutes to answer questions or do you need to shoot?
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, I’ve got a few minutes.
BRAD BROWN: All right, cool.
LINDSEY PARRY: We started 5 or 6 minutes late anyway.
BRAD BROWN: Perfect. Nicky was saying with the guide times that you give for the different medals for half marathons and marathons, are they given based on hilly courses, similar terrain to Comrades, or is that just for any race. I think that’s a great question.
LINDSEY PARRY: Look, it is a good question and it’s a general number, so if you are at altitude on a very difficult course you can maybe add a few minutes onto those times and similarly, if you’re down at sea level on an extremely flat course in nice, cool temperatures you probably need to go a bit quicker than the times that I’ve put, so that is a rough idea of where you should be and a couple of minute either side of that is acceptable and obviously it would depend a bit if you, yes like I say, whether sea level altitude, very tough, very easy and heat and cold. I mean, the heat actually probably has a bigger effect than both altitude and the hilly course, it really does nail you and so the combination of a flat, cool altitude, then you probably need to be about 3% to 5% quicker than the times that I’ve put there.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome stuff. Jared is saying: Thanks guys, absolutely love these webinars, great motivation, so pumped. Jared, awesome man, I’m so glad you did enjoy it. Lindsey, question in from Paul, Paul is saying: I am a novice for 2016, just turned 50, he qualified at the Cape Town Marathon, ran a 4.36. He runs about 40 kilometers a week and cycles 50 per week. Should he continue cycling in the buildup, just hoping for any medal? Paul, love that question. Lindsey, he is right on track, isn’t he?
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes absolutely, and don’t stop the cycling. There is certainly a case to be made for if you run more you will get better but there’s a line there and you are doing fantastically well with what you’re doing now. It may well be that we cut the cycling down slightly but listening to the mileage that you redoing Id keep that going all the way through and we’d look at increasing the running ever so slightly but not much more, to be honest. We get you another 15 or so K’s a week and then there will be the odd high week when you do a marathon or you do an ultra but honestly, you’re bang on track, you’re in a good place and that cycling is going to help you to build strength and its going to help you to build cardiovascular power and you’re going to be just fine.
BRAD BROWN: Yes Paul, one thing I didn’t mention in my journey, that year that I finished Comrades I also decided I was going to do a lot of cross training and I ended up cycling a lot, I ended up doing a couple of triathlons and that cycling has helped my running like you have no idea, so it is fantastic. Got a question in from Sibosiso, he wants to: Please explain the high level, what he gets by becoming a member. Sibosiso, what’s going to happen is, let me go back quickly onto here so that you can see exactly what you’re going to be getting with regards to that membership site, okay. We’ve basically just started it, todays webinar will be the first live one.
Obviously the ones we’ve done in the past are being loaded as we speak as well, so the guys from 2014 and 2015 Comrades, if you want to go back and watch those, although I would suggest stick with the program essentially, so as we do these things and add them over the next few months just go with the process, so all of those will be added in, the video recordings will be there and that answers Simon. You asked that question as well, you missed the start of this webinar; the recordings are going to being the member’s area of the website as well, so we are doing them live free. If people aren’t able to make them live unfortunately, that’s where the replays are going to be so you’ll have access to all the online Comrades seminars that we do.
We’re also going to be doing and the plan is to do them once a month, one generic general running sort of online seminar, so we’ll get either Lindsey will do it or we’ll get another expert whether it be a dietician or a podiatrist, whoever it is, to talk about the various things. The first one we’re going to be doing will be on nausea, that’s the plan; we’ll also be doing on cramping, on running shoes and that sort of thing so you’ll have access to all of those going forward as well. There’s a member’s forum so you’ll be able to ask questions on there and as it grows, at the moment, I mean we’re getting the thing going so there’s not too many people in there but we’ll be asking and answering questions in those forums so it gives you an opportunity to chat to other members of the community and also have limited access to Lindsey through those forums.
You will have access and it’s only for the members, those lunchtime Q and A sessions that we’ll be doing over time that you’ve got access to be able to get onto a call and it’s a very small group. I think its maximum 25 people, these are obviously a lot bigger, so you’ll be able to ask questions and get your question answered on those session with Lindsey, those lunchtime sessions and so that’s what’s going to be in that membership site, there’s going to be lots of info as we go and obviously things will evolve and grow as we sort of get this thing out as well. Michael was saying it didn’t get the URL. Michael, what I’ll do is yes, you asked if I could email it to you, as soon as we’re done here I’ll get that done. I said until 13:00, I know we’re running slightly over so maybe what I might do is just extend it slightly to like 14:00 to give you time, so I’ll pop it to everyone who was on today’s seminar, I’ll pop them an email to the link but if you want to go and check it out, Michael, its coachparry.com/membership-options, that’s the URL to get to. You can go check that out.
Now, any other questions, can the membership be paid by EFT? Karien, unfortunately not, we can only do it on credit card unfortunately just because the software that we use, it’s all automated and obviously if we were doing it manually it would then push the cost up unfortunately quite a bit, so that’s where we’re sitting at right now. Lucy is saying: Thank you very much, that was fantastic. Lucy, thank you for your time today, thanks for joining us, it is much appreciated. I’m just flipping through these questions, Lindsey, to see if there’s any that we did possibly miss out.
I think we got Ntunsi, no there we go, we’ve got one from Ntunsi saying: By running City 2 City half marathon am I right to say that she pushed back, hang on, this is a 2 part. Sorry, my bad I missed the first part. I’m asking the question on behalf of my wife with her permission. After 2 unsuccessful attempts at Comrades, she was not a runner before deciding to enter; she thinks that there may be some big catch or something along the route that scares her so she wants to discover it for herself. She did the Old Eds 21 in 2.29, then got injured, initially was pain in the hamstring and then started moving to the knee area but September she consulted a physio who identified that due to a car accident she had in the early 2000’s she would be protecting her right ankle and because her left leg is stronger than her right they worked on relaxing the muscles, getting the glute strengthened in the right leg, she was also told to take some time off between 6 to 8 weeks and doing some stretches, the question is she’ll only start running, get back there, she’ll only
sorry Lindsey ,there we go.
The question is by running City 2 City half marathon, am I right in saying that she in fact pushed back her 6 to 8 week recovery period, should she count from the 28th of September a new 6 to 8 week period and B, she’s frustrated that she’ll sit the 8 weeks and still experience the pain when she starts running again. Do you have any advice on how she could start training again and yes, it’s a very long question but a difficult one to answer and often, I mean if a medical practitioner has told her to take some time off, I think runners, we always try and see if something’s sore we’ll run on it to see how it reacts. Lindsey, what advice can you give Ntunsi?
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes look, if it hurts and that’s the one part if the question I didn’t get so if she hurt again running at the City 2 City, then yes, then I would have to say that the smart is to do the proper rest. Look, it sounds like a long time to rest, 6 to 8 weeks is generally the time that we would give people to rest when they have had some quite acute trauma injury of it they’ve had an operation, so that seems a bit long for me but I haven’t done the examination or whatever so it may well be that the doctors found something more serious in there, so some rest if very definitely required to continue working on those imbalances and the leg strength imbalance and then when you start again you certainly don’t want to start running in a half marathon, it’s all about building up as slowly as possible.
I would start with 15 to 20 minutes of running and build up over a period of 12 weeks until you can run 10 K’s uninterrupted and then from there you will be able to get to probably 21 K’s in about 8 to 10 weeks and from the 21 K’s you’ll be able to get to a marathon in another 4 to 6 weeks depending on how the thing goes, so that time period I’ve given you now gives you 3 months, 5 months, 6 months to your marathon and that’s quite a safe way of looking at it.
BRAD BROWN: Lindsey, question in from Danny in Atlanta, Georgia. Danny, you’re addicted Danny, he wants to know are rest day complete rest days or are they cross training, strength training days?
LINDSEY PARRY: So you can do cross training and strength training on the rest days but I do like people to take at least 1 day in the week where it is a total rest day, so on a 4 day a week running program 2 of those days can be taken up with cross training and/or gym but 1 day I would keep aside as a strictly rest day.
BRAD BROWN: Brilliant. Question in from Ash, Ash is saying: As a novice that’s been running for 6 months now do I need to be at the 2.20 half marathon level already or is it fine if I’m still building to that?
LINDSEY PARRY: Its okay if you’re still building to that but you do need to get to that point before you attempt a marathon. I think that’s quite important because the chances, if you’re a 2.25 to 2.30 you put a lot of risk on yourself for actually completing the, or certainly completing in under 5 hours so you want to be about at 2.20 half marathon before you hit the marathon and then that will allow you to qualify for the race.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome. Another question in from Jason, Lindsey and I think this is probably going to be the last one, unfortunately we’re running out of time. He was saying: How is the Two Oceans going to factor into this year’s Comrades seeing as that its 26th of March, its quite early next year.
LINDSEY PARRY: Yes, so it’s quite a long break and I suppose if you want to give both races a bit of stick it’s the year to do it. I’m still not a big fan of racing the Oceans hard, though, because it comes in not quite the middle, it comes right at the start of your biggest training block for Comrades so if you do hammer it hard you must factor in some recovery time, probably a week of no running, and then get going again and train for Comrades, but certainly with the time that it is now, it’s about as good as it’s going to get if you want to race both in 1 year.
BRAD BROWN: Awesome stuff and here’s another quick one, let’s just get to this one and then I think we are done. Ash was saying: Info on shoes for the Cape Town people, Cattle Sport at Canal Walk [Inaudible 01.12.41] has some good deals, generally 500 bucks or cheaper than stores, last year’s model of shoes, but who cares about that? Yes, I think that’s some great advice, Ash. Thanks for sharing that, much appreciated so if you’re in Cape Town, Canal Walk, there we go, Cattle Sports, you can pick up last year’s model of running shoes and I do that all the time. That’s a bit of great advice. I scour Sportsman’s Warehouse like you have no idea looking for like the previous year or previous 2 years’ sort of models and yes, you generally pick them up for a lot cheaper so that’s great advice for getting cheaper shoes.
Lindsey, thank you so much for your time today. Go check out that link. If it’s cool with you, Lindsey, I’m going to extend it to 14:00 just that I can get those email out to everyone who was on the webinar today. That link once again if you haven’t checked it out, that’s it, you can go and check it out if you want to sign up for the Coach Parry sort of online community and I see a lot of people have signed up already. We are awesome, we are chuffed to have you on board and we can’t wait to help you get your medal in Comrades 2016. The next one of these Comrades the webinars happening, what’s the date today? Today is the 7th so it will be the 4th of November, is the next one that is happening. We look forward to spending some time with you then.
The replay of this webinar will be up in that membership area of the Coach Parry website within the next few hours. I’ll try and get that up as quickly as possible so until next time, from myself, Brad Brown and Lindsey Parry its cheers.
