Is December a good time to rest up if you have Comrades Marathon ambitions the following year? Hear form Lindsey in this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast; not only with tips on what to do around December, but also on what cross training you can do with a Down run in mind.

Transcript

Welcome onto this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown, we’ve got Comrades coach Lindsey Parry with us once again and as we wind down 2015, a great question in. It was submitted on Facebook my Nkululeko Musi.

Lindsey, Nkululeko says: I would like to know what’s the best strategy for this December period, should we be putting more mileage in the legs or should we do less hectic training. From after the Comrades Marathon to The Tough One, he says he ran 1 200km, wanted to rest and only do swimming and cycling since then.

When should be the right time to get back on the road and is it a Down run, what sort of cross training will be best to help managing the Down run pain? There’s a lot in there, but it’s the right question to be asking at this time of the year.

A rest around December time is not a bad idea

Lindsey Parry: Nkululeko, it’s a great question. You train pretty hard up to Tough One, so I’m really glad that you did take a break. It’s been just over two weeks now since The Tough One and that’s about the right amount of time for a break at this part of the year.

Then a bit of cross training now and slowly building up the running over the next three weeks is a really good way to go about it. So that your body is ready to rock n roll come January. A mistake a lot of people will make is to load December and then you arrive in January actually pretty fit and what are you going to do about it?

Well, you’re fit, you might as well get fitter and you train harder and I find that that formula normally leads to people picking up overuse injuries or being very tired around April. It’s not a great time of year now to train too hard. Now is a good time of year to just tick it over, maintain some kind of fitness so that you’re actually ready to train in the New Year.

What cross training to do for a Down Comrades

In terms of what cross training is best for the Down run, well, strength training is the best kind of supplementary training. Let’s call it that, that you can do, because you really want to prepare your body for the eccentric load, that heavy pounding of the Down.

That said, it’s still good to keep up some other form of cross training. Cycling is a really good option, rowing is a decent option, swimming is a good option. So anything that’s non-impact but can help to continue to develop your cardio vascular fitness is a good alternative for cross training. But I would say that the strength training is almost non-negotiable for the Down Comrades. Really, you want strong quads that are ready to accept the challenge of the Down run.

BB: Nkululeko, brilliant, thanks for that question. Enjoy the bit of a break you are taking and it sounds like you are going to have an awesome 2016. Lindsey Parry, thank you very much for that as well, we look forward to catching up again on Wednesday, the next edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, until then, from the two of us, it’s cheers.