The running of the 93rd Comrades Marathon is less than a week to go and to celebrate this, I thought I could share a lesson or two on how I have successfully completed 7 of them. The timing of this blog means this can only, unfortunately, benefit those that aspire to run in 2019.
For me Comrades is a "numbers" game. To qualify for Comrades Marathon, you have to complete a standard marathon (42.2 km or 26.2 miles) in 5 hours, that is at an average pace of 7.1 min/km. However, to complete Comrades in under 12 hours, you need to run the whole 89km (55 miles) at a pace of about 8.0 min/km....only 1 min/km slower on average than your marathon time. Given that Comrades Marathon is more than double the marathon, running it at only 1 min/km slower is a big ask. But more importantly, 8.0 min/km is cutting the finish time rather fine and does not leave any room for the unexpected. Comrades Marathon is long and possibilities of simply "hitting a wall" and slowing down considerably at some point during the race exist.
In 2015, I completed my qualifier at average 6.04 min/km and completed Comrades the same year at average 7.3 min/km, a bronze medal finish. The point I am making is that completing a marathon qualifier at 6.4 min/km puts you in a better position to complete the Comrades Marathon within the 12 hour cutoff. Put differently, I recommend that athletes train towards completing a 42.2 km qualifier at 4,5 hours to almost guarantee a Comrades finish if all goes fairly well.
Prepare for a qualifier very well and run it once. Never try to improve your seeding because most likely you will lose more than you gain in the process. You could eventually get a better seeding but this will not not be useful if you get to the starting lineup with fatigue.