Welcome back to Ask Coach Parry and today we look at the guys and girls who are aiming for a Bronze Comrades Marathon Medal.

That is to finish between 9 and 11 hours. Where should these runners be this time of the year?

Brad Brown: Welcome back to Ask Coach Parry and today we look at the guys and girls who are aiming for a Bronze Comrades Marathon Medal.

That is to finish between 9 and 11 hours. Where should these runners be this time of the year?

Lindsey Parry: The bronze guys tend to be slightly better runners than the Vic Claphams. They have a little bit more experience, even if they have not done the Comrades Marathon before they probably have got a little more of a background or certainly an aptitude.

Not too much too soon

Chances are they probably did a bit more running through December anyway, but again – there is a cautionary note – you don’t want to be doing too much too early in the season.

Heading into the second week in January, I would advise the bronze guys to be running in the region of 40 – 50km’s per week. We will look to gently build that up over time.

Hopefully majority of the bronze guys have actually qualified towards the end of last year so there is actually no need to run a hard marathon.

Which means that they can really do a nice steady, consistent build up and lay their platform for March and April where we want them to do most of their hard work.

Again, we are running four times a week. We don’t want to be doing too many runs over 25km’s. So your long run on a weekend is going to be somewhere between 18 – 22, 23km’s with a couple of 8 – 12km’s in the week.