Comrades Marathon

ollietrex

Just wondering has any one done the Comrades Marathon, would they recommend it?

http://www.comrades.com/

belcarra

Never done it but I think that would be the ultimate pinnacle of anything I would consider doing running-wise. I hear all good things about it and I still can't work out whether I'd prefer to do the 'down' or 'up' version!!
I was in SA last year in 2010 at the WC and drove what I imagine must be that route. Either way, there are lots of hills all the way into Durban so it's gonna be tough regardless!

I'm sure there will be a few around these parts that have done it so looking forward to hearing their feedback also!

hot to trot

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ollietrex wrote: »

Just wondering has any one done the Comrades Marathon, would they recommend it?

http://www.comrades.com/

yup did the UP last year. Definitely is one of the bucket list events and you wont regret doing it .
I was concerned that the hype was overstated and that perhaps after all it took to get there, that perhaps I would be disappointed but I have to say that it is not possible to hype this too much.

It is more than a race it is a life experience. Train well and enjoy the day. NO regrets.

The UP and DOWN races are very very different.

Krusty_Clown

I'm doing the 'up' next year. Can't wait!

Redjeep!

Can't claim it myself, but I work with a South African guy who did it last year and loved it. Said it was hard, but a great event.

jeffontour

Did it in 07, well I think that was when I did, I'm getting on!

Fabulous event, great if you are well trained and ambitous, yet doable if you stupidly pick it as your first ultra and go over ill prepared as I did.

I was on a down year, do not be fooled into thinkin it the easy option. The long sections of downhill combined with horrible camber in places mean one leg takes a beating.

Difference between up and down was best summed up when it was described to me in terms of post race limp, 2 days for up, 2 weeks for down.

hot to trot

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm doing the 'up' next year. Can't wait!

Ah brill Krusty . I knew you had a longing hiding in there somewhere.

opus

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I'm doing the 'up' next year. Can't wait!

Snap!

Think I managed to convince a few friends to come along to make a holiday out of it on an xmas night out so baring disaster might well see you there.

belcarra

I've been doing a little more research into this and am even keener to do this next year.
Big factor will be costs of getting to SA in mid-Summer. Anyone know the ball park of best flight prices?

hot to trot

Cant remember details but think my travel costs were about 800 quid. It varies hugely so keep an eye out for sales and early booking etc. Going through UK isnt always the cheapest so check out skyscanner and sites like that .
Good luck and enjoy.

belcarra

hot to trot wrote: »

Cant remember details but think my travel costs were about 800 quid. It varies hugely so keep an eye out for sales and early booking etc. Going through UK isnt always the cheapest so check out skyscanner and sites like that .
Good luck and enjoy.

HTT,
We're sharing pacing duties for 5:00 in DCM so expect most of that to be taken up with me asking you all sorts of questions about Comrades!!:D

Krusty_Clown

If I remember correctly, Etihad has slightly cheaper flights to SA, if you don't mind spending an extra few hours travelling. It's not really summer season in SA, so flights may be slightly cheaper than other times of the year. Sadly, it seems my son's leaving certificate has taken priority over my planned assault on the up course next year, so it looks like I'll have to postpone to the 'down' in 2014.

hot to trot

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

If I remember correctly, Etihad has slightly cheaper flights to SA, if you don't mind spending an extra few hours travelling. It's not really summer season in SA, so flights may be slightly cheaper than other times of the year. Sadly, it seems my son's leaving certificate has taken priority over my planned assault on the up course next year, so it looks like I'll have to postpone to the 'down' in 2014.

Dont hang around after and you will be back in time for it . Isn't it usually end of May and exams start after June bank holiday. You will be better keeping out of his way :D

hot to trot

belcarra wrote: »

HTT,
We're sharing pacing duties for 5:00 in DCM so expect most of that to be taken up with me asking you all sorts of questions about Comrades!!:D

Looking forward to it . WIll be picking your brains too

Enduro

Must look into this one myself. Definitely on the "to do" list.

opus

belcarra wrote: »

I've been doing a little more research into this and am even keener to do this next year.
Big factor will be costs of getting to SA in mid-Summer. Anyone know the ball park of best flight prices?

Entries open this weekend so it's time for me to commit I think! There's a Comrades ambassdor for Ireland on the web page & I've already been in touch to ply him for info so maybe drop him an email.

Haven't started checking flights but will be doing it in the next month or so.

belcarra

Krusty - Have you decided on this yet? Or has your child proved more important to you than running??:eek:

Enduro - Will 2013 be your year??

Opus - Have you booked anything yet? I have been in email communication with the Irish Comrades ambassador and he's already been very helpful with more to come. He mentioned that this formula is a good indicator of finishing time for next June:
{2 x (Marathon PB time + 30mins)} = Potential Comrades time.

Looking like I'd be just outside the wire for the Silver Medal (7h30) but at least there's plenty of time to get the training in to rectify that situation!

Krusty_Clown

belcarra wrote: »

Krusty - Have you decided on this yet? Or has your child proved more important to you than running??:eek:

The welfare of my child is apparently more important that my needs, in order to avoid having my child end up on welfare. As those flea-bags would say on Dragon's Den: I'm out. 2014 and down-hill it is for me..

Enduro

Currently throwing events into google calendar to try and plot what to target for next year. Was only looking at the comrades website yesterday! I suspect it won't be next year though. Will decide soon enough. It definitely has to be done some year though!!

Dunebuggy

Enduro wrote: »

Currently throwing events into google calendar to try and plot what to target for next year. Was only looking at the comrades website yesterday! I suspect it won't be next year though. Will decide soon enough. It definitely has to be done some year though!!

Sure you could combine it with an AR race :-)

belcarra

belcarra wrote: »

I have been in email communication with the Irish Comrades ambassador and he's already been very helpful with more to come. He mentioned that this formula is a good indicator of finishing time for next June:
{2 x (Marathon PB time + 30mins)} = Potential Comrades time.

Looking like I'd be just outside the wire for the Silver Medal (7h30) but at least there's plenty of time to get the training in to rectify that situation!

After doing a little more researching(?) it appears the above formula is a very optimistic viewpoint. For a Silver medal you would really need to be a 3hr marathoner with only a slight chance if a 3:10 marathoner.
I'm thinking it might be a Bill Rowan medal for me to aim for by the time it comes around but sure we'll rule nothing out yet!!

opus

belcarra wrote: »

Opus - Have you booked anything yet? I have been in email communication with the Irish Comrades ambassador and he's already been very helpful with more to come. He mentioned that this formula is a good indicator of finishing time for next June:
{2 x (Marathon PB time + 30mins)} = Potential Comrades time.

Looking like I'd be just outside the wire for the Silver Medal (7h30) but at least there's plenty of time to get the training in to rectify that situation!

I'm getting close, been looking at flights etc recently. Some friends are coming along for a bit of a holiday afterwards so been waiting for them to make up their minds on travel and stuff. Thinking of flying via Dubai and taking an overnight there on the way back as it's somewhere I'd really like to take a look at.

Yeah I got the same info for the 'ambassador' for the race, would be borderline silver medal myself but I'm going to aim somewhat lower for my first go at something like that seeing as I've never run more than marathon distance before & try for the Bill Rowan medal instead.

Almost 10,000 entries in so far I saw on the website earlier. Only 230 days to go :eek:

TFBubendorfer

belcarra wrote: »

I have been in email communication with the Irish Comrades ambassador and he's already been very helpful with more to come. He mentioned that this formula is a good indicator of finishing time for next June:
{2 x (Marathon PB time + 30mins)} = Potential Comrades time

From my experience in marathons and ultras I can definitely say that this is a very optimistic formula. I would bet my house that if they actually did some real statistics for people's marathon and comrades times, the reality would be very different.

I'm a 3-hours marathon runner. It took me 7 hours to finish Dingle last month, which would equate roughly to a 7:45 Comrades finish. Dingle is probably the tougher course and I wasn't racing it all out. 7:30 for Comrades might be just about doable, but it would be tight.

Comrades is on my bucket list, but at the moment I'd have to win the lottery to be able to go.

belcarra

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

From my experience in marathons and ultras I can definitely say that this is a very optimistic formula. I would bet my house that if they actually did some real statistics for people's marathon and comrades times, the reality would be very different.

I'm a 3-hours marathon runner. It took me 7 hours to finish Dingle last month, which would equate roughly to a 7:45 Comrades finish. Dingle is probably the tougher course and I wasn't racing it all out. 7:30 for Comrades might be just about doable, but it would be tight.

Comrades is on my bucket list, but at the moment I'd have to win the lottery to be able to go.

Yes, I think that's probably about the size of it Thomas.

Probably good for me really as unless I get the EPO on discount:p I'll be well off the required mark so my focus can move exclusively to the Bill Rowan Medal.

Out of curiosity what was your elevation gain for the Dingle 50 miler? From what i can make out Comrades has about 1700m climb but it's difficult to get clarity on the matter.

TFBubendorfer

belcarra wrote: »

Out of curiosity what was your elevation gain for the Dingle 50 miler? From what i can make out Comrades has about 1700m climb but it's difficult to get clarity on the matter.

Seriously? In that case I'll take back my comment about Dingle probably being tougher! :eek:

My Garmin track is here. It says 3,298 ft elevation gain, which would be just a touch over 1000m.

Having said that, I know how unreliable elevation data tends to be.

opus

Here's what it looks like plus here's a Garmin track. Must say I don't like the look of the course from 20k to 40k at all :eek:

A brief discussion of the route - ups and downs (but far more "ups"!)

The route, as you can see from the image above, is perhaps one of the most demanding of any 'mass event' around. By way of comparison, the Boston Marathon, which we covered earlier this year, features a sequence of hills called the Newton Hills, shortly after the halfway mark. The most famous of those, "Heartbreak Hill", is an 800m long climb that rises about 30m. On Sunday, the Comrades runners will encounter the following:

Cowies Hill - starts at 14km, and then climbs up 137m in 1.5km (9.1%)
Fields Hill - begins after 22km and rises 213m over 3km (7.1%)
Botha's Hill - a 2.4km climb that rises 150m (6.3%)
Inchanga - just after halfway (only a full marathon and then some!), a 2.5km climb that also rises 150m (6%)
Polly Shorts - the make-or-break moment of the elite race, a shortish climb of 1.8km that climbs perhaps 100m, but it's here that the elite race is often decided, simply because runners have two full marathons in their legs, having run 80km to this point.

ThePiedPiper

I'd love to know the stats for how well 2:50-3:00 marathoners do on Silver attempts on up versus down runs. I know people talk about the recovery for the down being so much worse, but I think for people doing this on a once in a lifetime silver medal effort, I'd happily take the longer recovery time. I'm guessing I'd want to get myself into sub 2:50 shape before attempting Comrades. It probably requires about a year of absolutely dedicated training of at least 50 miles per week, probably rising to 80/90, but I'd like to think that's possible.

Opus and TFB, you've both gone sub-3 also. If you were to commit to Comrades, would you not put everything into getting yourself into putting yourself in with a shout of a silver medal? Also TFB, I think you've got much greater marathon potential than your Vienna time showed. Realistically, you've probably been in sub 2:55 shape a couple of times, so I reckon with your experience at ultras, combined with a programme focusing on Comrades alone, there'd be no reason not to target it. Your race in Dingle, impressive as it was, would have probably been 15 minutes faster if it wasn't for the 24 hour, or am I being overly optimistic?

TFBubendorfer

RunForestRun wrote: »

Also TFB, I think you've got much greater marathon potential than your Vienna time showed. Realistically, you've probably been in sub 2:55 shape a couple of times, so I reckon with your experience at ultras, combined with a programme focusing on Comrades alone, there'd be no reason not to target it. Your race in Dingle, impressive as it was, would have probably been 15 minutes faster if it wasn't for the 24 hour, or am I being overly optimistic?

Yes, that's probably all true. I'm sure I've been in 2:55 shape and was possibly even better than that when I ran Connemara earlier this year, and Dingle was for fun only, coming 8 weeks after the 24hrs. In fact, I think I would have been 20 minutes faster if it had been my A race.

If I did Comrades I would definitely try to be in top shape and I like to think 7:30 is within reach, but it's definitely not a given and the margins are tight enough.

However, the formula from the Comrades ambassador implies that a 3:30 marathoner has a good shot at 7:30, and I seriously doubt that.

menoscemo

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

However, the formula from the Comrades ambassador implies that a 3:30 marathoner has a good shot at 7:30, and I seriously doubt that.

I think the formula is (marathon time + 30 minutes) x 2.

So for a 3:30 marathoner that would be 8hrs.

ThePiedPiper

For sure, I don't believe that a 3:30 marathoner could do it. A 3:30 marathon would be little more than a medium distance steady state run if somebody was aiming for a sub 7:30 Comrades. But, I do think that if somebody has run sub-3, then a silver Comrades medal has to be a goal. Saying that, I know that if I was to line up next year and do it, a sub-3 marathon would be completely irrelevant. Training for a 56 miler is probably completely different to the type of work I've done for sub-3.

In my own case, I'm not contemplating it until I can really put 2 years of my life into proper year-round constant training and racing. I promised myself about 5 years ago I'd do it before I was 40, so I've ten years to go!! Given the costs associated with such a trip, nothing less than 100% commitment and a 80% chance of a silver medal would be good enough. I'll probably dip my toe in the ultra waters in 2014 in Connemara to see how I deal with it before putting a real plan together.

TFBubendorfer

menoscemo wrote: »

I think the formula is (marathon time + 30 minutes) x 2.

So for a 3:30 marathoner that would be 8hrs.

Oops, sorry. I need to work on my reading skills.
I would not be confident of a 3:15 marathoner breaking 7:30 either, though.

TFBubendorfer

Check out this Comrades prediction calculator:

http://www.sportsdigest.co.za/comrades.shtml

I played around it for a bit. It roughly equates a 3:09 marathon to a 7:30 Comrades finish.

opus

belcarra wrote: »

Opus - Have you booked anything yet? I have been in email communication with the Irish Comrades ambassador and he's already been very helpful with more to come. He mentioned that this formula is a good indicator of finishing time for next June:
{2 x (Marathon PB time + 30mins)} = Potential Comrades time.

Looking like I'd be just outside the wire for the Silver Medal (7h30) but at least there's plenty of time to get the training in to rectify that situation!

Booked a Comrades package with these guys for the w/end of the race, my friends are arriving a day or two later & will be renting elsewhere in Durban so I'll join them for the rest of the holiday then. Just really wanted the days around the run to be taken care of so it would be one less thing to worry about!

opus

Had a brief chat with Krusty about Comrades in Dungarvan on Sunday so thought I'd drag this tread back to life. Is it just belcarra and myself running it in June?

I'm using the P&D 18 week up to 85 mile plan except that the MP runs are slower & I'll probably extend the longest runs out a bit distance wise. Apart from that I've three marathons, the Donadea 50k & the Connultra between now & then so hopefully if I get through all those will be ready to face those hills come June.

belcarra

Sorry to say Opus but I won't be doing it this time around. It just didn't suit this year. I'd hope to try and have a decent shot at 7:30 so another year or two's training will give me a better shot at that.
Looking forward to hearing how you get on though!

Krusty_Clown

Good article on the Comrades marathon by a very solid marathon runner: Doug Curtis. Well worth a read. Didn't realize Alberto Salazar was a previous Comrades winner.

opus

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

Good article on the Comrades marathon by a very solid marathon runner: Doug Curtis. Well worth a read. Didn't realize Alberto Salazar was a previous Comrades winner.

Thanks for that! It's getting threateningly close now so I'm that stage of both dreading & looking forward to race day