Marlene Anderson sent her question in to us and she says she has finished the 4th week of the Comrades Marathon finishers programme.

She is just taking it day by day. So far she finds the Saturday jog the most enjoyable - probably because she is running like a tortoise (as suggested).

Her question is as follows: Please can you advise me with regards to cross training for the Comrades Marathon. When do you suggest people cross train? It will probably be swimming. Does she then swim on rest days, or on run days? Or does it not matter?

Brad Brown: Marlene Anderson sent her question in to us and she says she has finished the 4th week of the Comrades Marathon finishers programme.

She is just taking it day by day. So far she finds the Saturday jog the most enjoyable - probably because she is running like a tortoise (as suggested).

Her question is as follows: Please can you advise me with regards to cross training for the Comrades Marathon. When do you suggest people cross train? It will probably be swimming. Does she then swim on rest days, or on run days? Or does it not matter?

Where to fit cross training into your programme

Lindsey Parry: On most of the Comrades Marathon training programmes there are more than one rest day. So, particularly with swimming, because it’s so low impact, you can happily take up 2 of the 3 rest days for example. But if you’re swimming 3 – 4 times a week, I would still keep at least one day free.

So that it is a total rest day. And that is not just so that your body can recover, it is also mentally just nice knowing that there is one day a week that you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to fit training etc, into your day.

And again, because of the low impact nature of swimming it is fine to do swimming on the same day as running. So if you are a person that is fortunate enough to have time to train twice a day most days of the week, then you could swim and run on most days, quite happily, and it shouldn't affect your Comrades Marathon training programme too much.