On today’s edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown, and Mtunzi got in touch today. Lindsey Parry, Mtunzi is saying, I’m battling with motivation to keep running. After Loskop I got sick with flu and was out for about 10 days.

I ran the Colgate 32km after that, and I’m busy writing exams at the moment. Done a total of 1 050km since January, which includes four marathons and two ultras I’m battling to do four runs a week and really struggling with the longer ones on the weekend.

What’s the bare minimum that I can do in the last two weeks to make sure that I am fit come race day?

On today’s edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, I’m Brad Brown, and Mtunzi got in touch today. Lindsey Parry, Mtunzi is saying, I’m battling with motivation to keep running. After Loskop I got sick with flu and was out for about 10 days.

I ran the Colgate 32km after that, and I’m busy writing exams at the moment. Done a total of 1 050km since January, which includes four marathons and two ultras I’m battling to do four runs a week and really struggling with the longer ones on the weekend.

What’s the bare minimum that I can do in the last two weeks to make sure that I am fit come race day?

Lindsey Parry: Well, fortunately the bare minimum is you don’t have to run at all and you’ll be okay on race day. However we don’t really want to do that. Look, besides the exams, the reason why you have got low motivation is you’ve just hammered your body into the ground.

That’s probably why you got sick. Four marathons, two ultras, that sounds to me like you’re running in the top 50 at the Comrades Marathon. So look, in this part now, 1 050 km, there’s also irony in this, you’ve done 1 050km and of that 1 050km you’ve done well over 200 of them in six runs.

So six runs, almost accounts for a quarter of your training and that is actually why your body is not feeling so clever. Probably two marathons and an ultra would have been more appropriate, but anyway, that’s done now.

How to bring the joy back to your running

So between now and Comrades race day, just tick over. We are only two weeks out, so if you can only get to four runs a week and they are between eight and 10km, that’s fine.

That’s going to keep you getting enough kilometres in your legs. Freshen up enough, and hopefully that reduced training will also help some of that motivation and enjoyment of running will come back.

BB: Awesome stuff. Mtunzi, I hope that helps, best of luck and we’ll see you out on race day, looking forward to it. Lindsey Parry, thank you so much for your time today. We’re back again with another edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast tomorrow.