Many top runners believe that the way to tackle Comrades is to break it up into smaller and more reasonable pieces (or Little Runs) rather than try to tackle one enormous distance of the better part of 90km. That’s enough to destroy even the strongest of us and that’s before we have even started running!
How does one break up Comrades though? Here are the easy to follow steps:
- Comrades organisers have 7 cut–off points on the route (including the finish and each has the time of day by which you need to be there.
- Use these 7 sections of the route given by Comrades to work out each of your “7 Little Runs”
- Calculate the distance of each “Little Run” from cut-off point to cut off point.
- Calculate the time that you need to reach each cut-off point. This is not the time needed to run each Little Run but the time by which you need to be at the next cut-off point – or end of the Little Run.
- Study the route from the description of the route posted to this website about November every year.
- The organisers have put up a large board warning of the upcoming cut-off point which is usually about 1km ahead of the point.
- You now know the distance of each Little Run and the time by which you need to have completed it.
- Now you can start to prepare your own time schedule (some call it a pacing chart) of where you need to be at what time of day to reach your goal.
- It is imperative that you plan your day. A realistic time schedule helps to avoid wasting time (which is easy to do) if you know that you need to be at the end of the section you are on, at a certain time.
The Marathon 