In this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown, Lindsey Parry joins us once again. Lindsey, great question’s got to do with seeding at Comrades. I know we’re still a long way out from Comrades, but this is obviously bugging Ronwyn Brayley. He wants to know how do back of the packers deal with the crowds over the first few Ks of a big race like the Comrades Marathon, for example?

Lindsey Parry: Look, it’s difficult and I actually had dinner with some friends last night and one of them had a crack of a run. She improved her PB by nearly two hours and ran a negative split and she was commenting that she started in D. For the first 20km she had people from E, F, G and H coming past her, for the first 20km of Comrades. The reality is that most people just panic, they panic at the amount of time they lost at the beginning. They don’t listen to any of the advice that is dished out and they go screaming through the field for the first 20km. She told me that she only started running back into her D people after halfway!

Patience is a virtue you need at the Comrades start

So how do you deal with it? You need to have some patience and by screaming through the first 20km and trying to make up those 10 minutes that you lose because of that congestion and everything at the start, you really are just ruining any chance you’ve got of finishing Comrades. Look, Comrades is discussing it all the time, they’re looking at ways of alleviating it. I don’t know what the solution is, but people in G and H need to get used to the idea that they will lose between 6-10 minutes at the start line. You’ve got to be patient, you’ve got to stick to your plan. You’ve just got to very, very slowly, all day long, catch up those 10 minutes that you lost and not try and catch it up in the first 20km. BB: Awesome stuff, Lindsey, thank you very much for that, we’re back again with another edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast in just a couple of days time. Don’t forget, if you have a question, all you need to do is head over to the website, coachparry.com. You can submit it there and who knows, we could be answering your question next time. Cheers.