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Comrades Marathon Runners

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Train towards Comrades 2011 with us.

Week before my first marathon (30 posts)

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  • Profile picture of Chalky White Chalky White said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Hi All

    coming up this weekend is the Hillcrest Marathon, which will be my first marathon. which will also be my first attempt at qualifying for Comrades.
    Training has gone very well up until last week monday, where i discovered i had a stress fracture in my foot, which luckily only put me out for last week.

    Does any one have any advice on how i should tackle training this week, considering i missed least week?

    i dont want to push too hard because i don’t want to be stuffed come Sunday’s race, but on the other hand i don’t want to take it too easy because i have already missed a weeks worth of preparation.

    thanks.

  • Profile picture of Berlinda Berlinda said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    @ Chalky, my suggestion is take it easy this week and see how your foot handles, I was out for 3 weeks with a stress fracture. Good luck with your race sunday, sure all will go well for you.

  • Profile picture of Anthony Bold Anthony Bold said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    chalky I was feeling not so pretty last week and the mileage dropped well below the planned mileage, by saturday I was feeling no better but decided to run anyway..well I have not felt thta bad on a race ever …thought i was going to pass out..took it easy for the rest of the day and did a very easy 10km trail yesterday followed by much couch training with my feet in the air and eating and hydrating…today I feel I can run for days without breaking into a sweat..will i make up last weeks mileage..well i have no intention of doing it and I know that my body was trying to tell me to slow down as this has been my hardest month of training since I started running again in 2003

  • Profile picture of Phillip Phillip said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    @Chalky, my km’s dropped considerably in the two weeks leading into my first marathon. If I remember correctly I’ve only done about 70km’s over the two-week period of which about 18 was in the last week. The hard work was already done a while back so all you can do now is to rest and make sure that your foot is ok.

    Good luck with your attempt and try to enjoy the day…

  • Profile picture of Chalky White Chalky White said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Thanks guys

    my foot is feeling 100% today, but i will still take it slow, i will be doing my first run this afternoon so that should give me an idea of how it has healed.

    If i dont make it in the sub 5hr time i also have the PMB marathon 2 weeks later, so i will just enjoy this weekends race and get some experience.

  • Profile picture of Anthony Bold Anthony Bold said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Chalky just remember if you hurt yourself further on the Hillcrest race then the two weeks to maritzburg is not a hell of a recovery period.. I know I am not one for setting good examples with my track record but it would probably be wiser to to take it easy and opt for the 21 at Hillcrest and then make a major attack on the maritzburg race, if the foot is not feeling great

  • Profile picture of Chalky White Chalky White said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Thanks Ant

    Yes i will make the call during the week on whether my foot will hold up during the marathon.
    right now it feel great. even if it starts to hurt during the race i can pull out after 21.

  • Profile picture of Dreamdoc Dreamdoc said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    @Chalky, my suggestion would be to rest this week COMPLETELY.
    Stress fracture is not something that you should be taking lightly. It can put you out for weeks if you are not careful.
    You have done all you need to do preparing for this race. Two weeks of no running and tapering is not a bad thing.
    I think too many people worry that they have not done enough for a race and end up doing badly because they ended up training TOO MUCH!
    My suggestion would be:
    1) put your feet up and rest this week completely – maybe swimming if you want, or upper body gym – basically nothing that puts any stress on your legs.
    2) run the Hillcrest slowly – at a pace that gets you in just under 05h00 – just to qualify. If at any time you feel pain and it is getting worse, you bail out at 21km.
    3) If you bail out for Hillcrest, rest for one more week and run slowly (shuffle) for 5km at most, not more than 3 times during the week leading to PMB.
    You want to run longterm and you want to run Comrades. So plan for the long term and there are still months to qualify.
    Don’t rush it, don’t panic and remember REST is your best friend.
    Good luck this weekend and keep us updated – every week!

  • Profile picture of Madelein Barnard Madelein Barnard said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Chalky – I’m just curious, who diagnosed the stress fracture? One week off sounds way too little for a stress fracture?

  • Profile picture of Chalky White Chalky White said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    hi Madelein

    i saw my doc at medicross in Hillcrest, he said it must be a stress fracture and told me to get x rays done, he then said he could not see anything on the xray but said that you dont often see stress fractures on x ray. he told me to take a week of training.

    so i just tool his word for it.
    and 1 week to the day my foot feels 100%.

  • Profile picture of Madelein Barnard Madelein Barnard said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Chalky – I hope he is right, stress fractures are normally not that easy to heal.

  • Profile picture of Chalky White Chalky White said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    Madelein – indeed lets hope so.
    Well today it feels great, this time last week i couldn’t walk on it.
    lets hope it was just minor.

    will give it a short test run tonight.

  • Profile picture of Madelein Barnard Madelein Barnard said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    You can always try the hop test – try softly hopping on that leg on a very soft surface, but you might not like the answer :)

  • Profile picture of Chalky White Chalky White said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    just tried it, no pain or discomfort at all.
    just a bit of thigh burning ha ha ha

    good sign! :)

  • Profile picture of Dreamdoc Dreamdoc said 3 months, 1 week ago ago:

    @Chalky, good luck for this weekend. Let us know how you did!