Resuming your Comrades Marathon training if you’ve been ill

Resuming your Comrades Marathon training if you’ve been ill

We answer a pretty general Comrades Marathon question on today’s Ask Coach Parry Podcast but it is one we get asked very often. This time of the year in South Africa it is winter and a lot of people are getting sick and missing out on a bit of training. A lot of people are worried already at this stage in their Comrades Marathon build up that they are getting sick with the flu and are being forced to miss a week or a week and a half’s worth of training.

What do they need to do when they come back from illness? Do they need to catch up or can they just pick up where they left off? What is the best way to pick up the training again if you’ve been forced out because of illness?

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Brad Brown: We answer a pretty general Comrades Marathon question on today’s Ask Coach Parry Podcast but it is one we get asked very often. This time of the year in South Africa it is winter and a lot of people are getting sick and missing out on a bit of training. A lot of people are worried already at this stage in their Comrades Marathon build up that they are getting sick with the flu and are being forced to miss a week or a week and a half’s worth of training.

What do they need to do when they come back from illness? Do they need to catch up or can they just pick up where they left off? What is the best way to pick up the training again if you’ve been forced out because of illness?

Lindsey Parry: It depends on the illness, the severity of the illness and what it has taken out of you.  This would be another classic case where a heart rate monitor would be extremely useful. I would in the first week back ease myself in regardless. So you would do a slightly easier week but just how easy that week is needs to be determined by your heart rate.

Use your heart rate as a guide

Your heart rate will very often give you an idea of how hard your body had to work to fight infection or if there is still a bit of lingering infection around. If your heart rate is quite a bit higher than usual then back off and really do an easy week. Let your heart rate guide you and as your heart rate settles you can push up your week more and more.

All things being ok and you fought the illness really successfully and there is not too much residual fatigue or residual infection I would go back on the Comrades Marathon programme where you stopped and then in the coming weeks I would do 50 – 75% of the prescribed work load, depending on how bad you feel. The following week 75 – 90% and then on the third week you are back to full steam.

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