We’ve had another question submitted to Ask Coach Parry, it comes from Dale Sekonyane, and Dale is a bit of a racing snake. He has been training with a Comrades Marathon training programme. He wants to know, is it possible for him to run a 2:30 marathon by December this year.

His marathon time at Soweto was a 3:04. He ran a 3:03 at Acacia. He’s 10km time is 37, he’s got a half marathon of 1:22, he used the paces of the 2015 Silver Comrades Marathon program, so he wants to reduce his time to sub 2:30 - if possible to 2:20 - by Two Oceans 2016, and wants to start preparing now.

If it is possible, what does he need to do?

Brad Brown: We’ve had another question submitted to Ask Coach Parry, it comes from Dale Sekonyane, and Dale is a bit of a racing snake. He has been training with a Comrades Marathon training programme. He wants to know, is it possible for him to run a 2:30 marathon by December this year.

His marathon time at Soweto was a 3:04. He ran a 3:03 at Acacia. He’s 10km time is 37, he’s got a half marathon of 1:22, he used the paces of the 2015 Silver Comrades Marathon program, so he wants to reduce his time to sub 2:30 - if possible to 2:20 - by Two Oceans 2016, and wants to start preparing now.

If it is possible, what does he need to do?

Lindsey Parry: From where he is now, the Comrades Marathon Silver Medal program is not a bad option to get him under the 3 hour, but that Comrades Marathon Silver Medal program is not going to take him down to the 2:30. He’s going to have to do a lot more running, a lot more specific training.

There are quite a few things he needs to do to make 2:30 even a plausible reality. His 37 minutes 10km could be quicker, just based on his 21km 82 minutes and certainly if he wants to get down to a 2:30 marathon he needs to get that 10km time well under 35 minutes, probably into the 33 minutes, actually probably into the 32 minutes.

For a start he needs to aim for just getting under 35 minutes and then we can see where we go from there. He would need to get his 21km time down to a minimum of 75 minutes because you have to be able to run back to back 75s to run a 2:30.

It’s about trainability

So right now at 82 minutes, he’s miles off. I would get to 75 on the half and then once you’re at 75 on the half, we can discuss where you need to get to go to the 2:30 marathon. It’s fast. It’s going to take a lot of work. It takes a hell of a lot of running. And with these things, typically, it’s not just about the program.

It’s about your trainability, your body’s ability to adapt to training stress, how quickly you recover. Because from a 3:06 Soweto, he should very definitely be capable of running sub 3 hour on a slightly easier course, but once you’ve gone under 3 hours, the next aim is 2:50.

From 2:50 probably it’s a 2:48, 2:45, he’s just got to keep chipping little pieces off. I think from now until December, to go from 3:06 to 2:30 is a bit of a stretch, particularly because his 10 and 21km times are far off the mark.