Famous last words. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you’re having to deal with an injury.

There’s always a pattern in the way we deal with injuries, at least there is for me. First comes the denial stage. “This is just a niggle, I’m sure if I run through it it’ll go.” Then comes the admittance stage, “damit! I’m injured.” Next is the fall apart stage, “there goes my race” or “there goes running career, wow is me!” Eventually, hopefully, we move onto the “where to from here?” stage and this is a very important stage.

I maintain that injuries are not part of, or at least don’t have to be part of running. In other words there are very few instances where we get injured because of running. 99% of the time we get injured because of things making up the other 23 hours of our day and the 1 hour spent running just has an incredible knack of exploiting those imbalances, weaknesses or tightness’s we’ve picked up.

There is one exception to what I’ve just said, as we get closer and closer to our genetic potential we get less bang for our buck. In other words, we get less return on the hours and effort we pour into our training. When we reach this point, sadly most runners never will, we start to push our boundaries and as a result we start to train on the edge of the cliff where the risk of injury is very high.

Either way, when we end up injured we almost always feel like our worlds are crashing in around us. But, getting injured can have a positive impact on our running.

When we do end up injured, the first and most important question to ask is always, “why did I get injured?” If you cannot answer this question then there is every likelihood that it will reoccur down the line. The answer to this question is not always obvious and requires significant thought and tracing through logbook entries to try and find a clue as to what got it started in the first place.

If we are unable to find the cause then we’re only ever treating the symptoms and that means we’re never really addressing the problem. Once we know the cause we can follow the correct treatment plan and prevent the injury from side-lining us again in the future.

In most cases we end up injured due to a biomechanical or muscular imbalance. Let’s face it, sitting behind a desk for 8 or 9 hours a day is hardly what the human body was designed for. Not only that but we get into motor vehicles and drive wherever we go. All this “inactivity” has major consequences when it comes to hitting the road for an hour or so each day. Running is particularly good at exploiting any imbalances that we may be carrying around.

Prevention is always better than cure so here are a few habits to make part of your training routine:

1. Always keep a training diary and note as much detail as possible for each session
2. Flag any and every niggle you may feel during a run. This may simply be a niggle or a “growing pain”, but flag it anyway. If it’s an injury beginning to rear its ugly head than you’ll start to see a pattern and can take steps to nip it in the bud before it becomes a major issue
3. Never push through a training session when the body is shouting “REST!!!!”
4. Keep strength work as part of your training week. Focus on the major areas: core, glutes, calfs, hamstrings and quads
5. If a niggle does turn to an injury get it treated immediately. Don’t waste time trying to wait it out, get it looked at and treated ASAP

I hope some of this helps you firstly prevent injury and secondly keep you sane during injury. Remember, regardless of how you feel, injury is not an act of God. God is not trying to punish you. There is however a very good reason for it, take the time to think back and identify the problem and then get your mind set on recovery.

Ray

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In order to complete a multi-stage event you will have to come face-to-face with all your doubts and fears and learn to tap into a deep inner strength you don’t even know is there. Ranulph Fiennes, a world renowned adventurer and holder of several world records says of long distance running and extreme adventures, “To discover a place where individuals take themselves to the extreme frontiers of the environment and their own physical capacity for endurance, is both inspiring and exciting.”

Be an inspiration

Very few human beings can sit and watch others pushing themselves to their very limits, without being inspired or motivated to demand greatness of themselves. There’s a very good chance that you’re looking to attempt a multi-stage race because you have been inspired by someone else who took on a challenge bigger than themselves. In their book, “Extreme Running,” Kym McConnell and Dave Horsley give two main reasons for taking on an extreme challenge saying, “one is the almost spiritual nature of this type of quest. The second is the desire to succeed, to conquer, to overcome a seemingly impossible physical and mental challenge.”

Regardless of the reason, I believe that inside every trail runner lurks an “ultra-beast,” fast asleep and often in deep hibernation. It’s awoken by the slightest sniff of adventure and desire to take on a seemly impossible challenge. When it begins to stir you’ll feel an itch, a nagging desire to take on any and every adventure. If it sounds impossible, insurmountable and downright nuts, chances are you’ll be dying to sign up.

So how do you scratch that itch? How do you take on a multi-stage event and ensure that you cross that elusive finish line days later? Trail ultra-marathon runner Daniel Rowland, winner of the Desert and Jungle multi-stage races, in an interview with Trail Talk SA gives four tips for mutli-stage racing. As a trail runner and running coach I expand on his tips below.

1. Include race specific training in your preparation

Multi-stage racing is very different to a single-stage event. Not only are you expecting your body to perform day-in and day-out, but you’re also throwing biomechanical changes into the mix. Single-stage events often require a very light or small hydration pack if anything, weighing roughly between 1 and 1.5kg. Multi-stage events on the other hand are often self-sufficient events where you are required to carry everything you’ll need for the day and sometimes for the entire event. This means that your pack will weigh anything from 3 to 15kg. Running biomechanics change dramatically with the weight of your pack. Including a few training runs with your pack at expected race weight will ensure that your muscles have adapted to your new running form on race day. Also make sure that include a few blocks of consecutive long runs. Weekends are great for this kind of training as well as double training sessions in a single day. For example, a typical peak training weekend might look at follows: Friday: am – 10km, pm – 20km; Sat: 30km; Sun: 30km.

2. Consider your equipment carefully

This is by far one of the most important aspects of multi-stage events. Finding yourself midway into a six day event with a broken strap or severe chaffing is either going to put an early end to your event or make it extremely uncomfortable and difficult to finish. You’d very quickly learn the error of your ways if you tried to knock a nail into a piece of wood with a candle. In the same way, you don’t line up at the start of a big adventure race with the wrong equipment. Make sure you have the correct shoes for the terrain you’ll be running on. Try on various hydration packs and with the assistance of an experienced sales person find a match for your body and shape. Get your hands on a shirt that’s not going to chafe and ride up your back with the movement of your pack.

3. Practice a recovery routine

With each passing day during the race you accumulate more and more mental and physical fatigue. In the build up to your event, make sure that you have experimented with and found a recovery strategy that works for you. This might be drinking a specific recovery shake, eating a certain meal or wearing compression tights. Everyone responds differently to different recovery methods and it’s important that you have established in advance what works for you and what doesn’t.

4. Pace yourself based on the entire length of the event

A multi-stage event is neither won nor lost in the first couple of stages. The winner is the runner who goes the full distance and slows down the least over the duration of the event. As you line up at the start of your adventure you will be bubbling with excitement and expectation and your inclination will be to go out too quickly on day one. Racing and pushing too hard on day one will leave you struggling to complete day three or four, which is often the longest stage of the event. Instead of standing at the start line getting all worked up, rather set out for a very easy warm up jog. This doesn’t need to be very long and 10 to 15 minutes is more than enough. You will find that this short easy jog gets your body ready for the day ahead and more importantly, settles your nerves and reduces pre-race anxieties.

What are you waiting for?

Multi-stage and extreme running is a fairly new and continually growing sports genre. There are a number of resources and runners’ race reports available to assist you in selecting an event. Trail Magazine, Trail Runner’s Guide and the internet provide endless resources on the many challenges available. My recommendation is to build up slowly and gradually to the point where you can take on your bucket list event with confidence. Start with a few shorter and smaller single stage events. Once you’re confident on the trails and have allowed your muscles time to adapt to the different movements you can then begin to move up to a two or three day multi-stage event and ultimately tackle the “big one.”

Day six, 5:35pm. With a new bounce in my step and a lightness in spirit I increase my pace at the sight of the finish line in the distance. It’s hard to believe that six days has come and gone. It’s hard to believe that what seemed impossible when I first signed up for this challenge months ago, it now, done. As the finish line gets bigger and bigger with each step I realise that I finish this challenge a different person to the one I was some 250km back. Life looks different. Nothing seems impossible and as I stride out on the hard beach sand my mind is already thinking ahead to the next challenge on my bucket list….

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Following the completion of an up Comrades your window for milking the fact that you’ve run 90km’s is a little smaller than it would be after a down-run. Walking with a well-deserved shuffle is definitely going to attract attention and get anyone you chat to asking you why you’re limping. This is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for to proudly announce, “Because I ran Comrades this last Sunday.” Of course once the shuffle goes, and let’s be honest, you can only fake it for so long, the attention from your accomplishment begins to fade and a little bit of depression sets in.

This is very normal.

Suddenly the glory days are behind you, you’re no longer up at some ridiculous hour to ensure you get a decent training run in before work and the scale is moving in the wrong direction after one too many post-race reward binges. Add to this the fact that you’ve poured every spare ounce of energy into thinking about this race. Oh, and then of course there’s the possibility that you may not have reached the goal you set for yourself.

Ok. I get it, I’m depressed. What now?

The first and most important step following a key race is to sit down and assess the race. Think about your training over the last few months. Think about your build-up and your sharpening phase. Think about the week before the race, race morning and the race itself. Ask yourself what worked and what didn’t. What went wrong and why? What needs to change next time round? In other words write up a full race report. You’ll be amazed at what you learn from each racing experience when you begin to put your thoughts on paper.

The second step is to identify a new goal. If you think about your main race goal, in this case Comrades, it was almost all you thought about. It was just about the only thing you wanted to speak about. It was pretty much the only thing that mattered to you and in the space of 12 hours it was all over and a thing of the past. Comrades was your goal. Get hold of a race calendar and look for upcoming events. Something, anything you can get your teeth into, even if it’s a relatively small goal by your standards. Once you’ve found a goal, enter and pay for it, that way you’ve committed to the goal and you are far more likely to start getting excited about it.

The third step is to get back on the road. Give yourself enough recovery to allow the damaged muscles to heel up and then get back on the road. If you go into hibernation for the next three months or so you will lose almost everything you’ve worked so hard to build leading up to Comrades. However, if you take two or three weeks to rest and recovery and then get back onto the road you will find your motivation levels returning pretty quickly. And because you’ve essentially done a massive amount of base-training the next few months are a great opportunity to run some PB’s over shorter distances.

Well done on taking Part in the 90^th installment of The Comrades Marathon and here’s to some PB’s over the shorter distances in the coming months.

Ray

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From time to time muscle fibres become “locked” in a contracted state otherwise known as a knot. This makes regular sports massage a very important part of your training program.

Find a good sports massage therapist

Finding someone who knows what they’re doing when it comes to sports massage is the first and most important step. You want someone who understands what the body goes through in training and who is able to assess how deep the massage can be based on where you are in your training and what races are coming up.

For example, you don’t want someone who is going to do a very deep massage two days before a big race.

There has to be a first time for everything

Unfortunately, just like everything else, when it comes to sports massage there has to be a first time. The first time is usually the worst and you may well want to take a rest day following the sports massage. I remember the first time I went, I could hardly lift my legs for a run the next day. I found the experience very painful and unpleasant, but within 2-3 days started to feel good again and the more regularly I went for a massage the less painful and unpleasant it became. Of course my first time was during a pretty hectic training block which meant I had built up a lot of knots and my muscles were already quite tender and sore.

The good news is that the body adapts very quickly to massage and the more regularly you go the quicker your body bounces back. Of course, the more regularly you have a massage the less knots you accumulate between visits.

How often do I need a sports massage

The lighter your training load the less frequently you’ll need a massage, the higher and tougher your training load the more frequently you’ll need one. I like to advise that a runner go for a massage every 4-6 weeks in easy to moderate training blocks. But once the training begins to heat up both in terms of intensity and mileage I suggest once every 2-4 weeks and sometimes you may even need one every week when your legs are in really bad shape.

When is the best time for a massage

If your week is simply another training week, then try to put the massage in just before a rest day or an easy/recovery day. For example, you might have a hill or track session on a Thursday followed by a rest day or very easy run on the Friday, in this case try and get to the massage on the Thursday after your session. This will give your body time to recover and benefit the most from the massage.

When it comes to race week there are times when you may need a very light massage 1-2 days from the race, BUT this should be the exception as opposed to the rule. The only time you go for a massage that close to a race would be when you are desperate and you feel like the race may push you over the edge. In most cases you should aim for a massage around 5-7 days before race day, this will allow the therapist to give you a deep massage with plenty of time for the body to recover before race day.

The 2-3 days after a massage generally leave the legs with a bit of a heavy feeling and you definitely don’t want that as you toe the line of your goal race.

After a hard race give your legs 3-4 days to heal up and recover before going for a sports massage. After a hard race, especially if it’s a half marathon and up, will leave a fair amount of muscle damage and micro tears, a sports massage at this point is going to make it worse. A very light and shallow massage may be beneficial in the 2-3 days following a hard race, but for the deep tissue massage rather give your legs a few days to recover first.

Can I do it myself

Self-massage either through massaging arnica oil into your calfs and quads etc or through foam rolling are important between sports massage visits. It’s not always practical from a time or cost perspective to get to a massage every week and this is where self-massage can help to keep knots at bay. Be careful however not to overdo the self-massage and limit it to every other day at most.

If you’ve never been for a sports massage start getting it into your schedule and keep knots out of the equation. This will prevent you missing out on training or key races simply because your muscles have tightened up to the point where hamstring are pulling or calfs are going into spasm and you simply cannot run.

Good luck.

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For years runners have simply accepted that injuries are part of running and that you simply have to learn how to manage them. In my view that is complete rubbish!

Of course there are going to be set backs along the way and there are going to aches and pain and niggles from time to time, but injuries are a different thing all together.

There are really only two ways we get injured.

The first is through our own pure stupidity. For example, you and a few of your running mates head to the local stadium to watch a high class athletics meet. What you see is inspirational. Everything from the 100m sprints through to the 5000m track races see’s athlete after athlete pushing beyond their boundaries, fighting against their opposition and defeating their own personal daemons. Something deep inside of you wants nothing more than to get out on that track and open up the throttles. Which at the end of the meet you and your mates decide to do. The fact that you haven’t been near, let alone on a track in the last 20 years doesn’t deter you. With one of your friends doing the honors, “On your marks. Get set. Go!!!” you take off down the home straight like you just stole a hubcap. You’re flying. Past the 20m mark, 30m’s, 40m’s and then suddenly and without warning, you crash to the floor like a wounded buffalo. You’ve torn your hamstring and for the next 6 weeks and possible longer you will spend 1 hour a week getting this injury attended to.

The second way in which we get injured is through a lack of maintenance.

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This is my favourite time of the year. It never fails to amaze me. Winter is nature’s time to die and die it sure does! The grass is dead, the leaves are bare and there’s an icy cold in the air that finds its way into the very core of your bones and joints.

Fortunately winter lasts for a few months and then suddenly, out of the blue, something changes.

I don’t know what it is or how it happens but suddenly without warning you wake up one morning and there’s life! Magically, overnight blossoms and signs of life start to apear and with that comes a feeling of hope. Winter is at its end and summer is on the way.

This time of the year brings a newness and a freshness that seems to rekindle the desire to get out on the road, to get fit and perhaps even train up to run a PB or a race for the first time in the months ahead.

Time to get up and get going!

There’s nothing quite like heading out the door in spring, a crisp freshness to the morning, the sun beginning to rise, the sound of birds chirping, the smell of the new blossoms and the bright new colours adorning the trees and shrubs. Ah, God has indeed blessed us with a wonderful creation and what a privilege to be able to get up and go for a run.

Perhaps you’ve been in hibernation for the winter or turned off that alarm clock more than you’d care to remember and perhaps the scale or tight belt takes every opportunity to remind you of your “lazy” winter.

Well, no time like the present. How about putting your running kit out tonight, setting the alarm and heading out that door in the morning for an awesome spring run? A word of advice, place the alarm clock out of reach, that way when it goes off in the morning you have to get up to turn it off, once you’re up the rest is easy.

Here are a few training workouts you could do to get your heart pumping, blood flowing and muscles moving:

• Head out for an easy 30-60 minute run but leave the watch/garmin behind. You’ll have a good idea of how long or far to run for 30, 45 or 60 minutes, don’t worry about pace, just listen to your body and let it dictate what you do and most important of all, have fun! Enjoy it, soak up the warmer air and sights and sounds of spring. You’ll come back feeling like you’ve worked out but at the same time feeling alive and energetic and renewed.
• Head out for a total run of around 45-50 minutes. After running easy for 20 minutes as a warm up mix it up for the next 10 minutes with Fartlek (Fartlek means “speed-play”), pick a few landmarks and run a little faster to the landmark and then easy jogging for 30-60 seconds and then repeat. A landmark could be a lamp post or a street sigh or the fancy house on the corner, mix it up and have fun. And then return to an easy pace for the last 15 to 20 minutes as a cool down.
• Run a time trial or take part in a series like 644 (www.644.co.za) The same principles apply as to any other run, ensure you warm up properly with a 15-20 minute slow run and then don’t push the time trial if you have not trained and built up to push it, rather break it into sections and perhaps run 2km’s hard, 1km easy, or run for 5 minutes, walk for 3 minutes, etc. Remember to cool down with a 15-20 minute jog afterwards.
• Find a short, steepish hill and power up the hill for 30 seconds, jog slowly or walk back to the bottom for recovery and then proceed to the next repeat. Don’t forget, warm up and cool down!

Those are just a few ideas to get you going.

Remember to build slowly and easily and alternate hard with easy days.

Enjoy spring and enjoy getting back out there.

Ray

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The benefits of running are many, improved fitness for starters. I hate the feeling of being unfit, I feel lazy, sluggish, tired and unmotivated. Fitness brings with an energy and a zest for life. Of course if you have been out of running for some time getting back is always difficult and the first 6 weeks or so feels like a bit of a slow, but once you find your routine and some resemblance of fitness begins to return you begin to feel better about yourself, about the wold and basically about life in general. As our fitness levels improve so does the functioning of our bodies. Our hearts grow stronger and are able to pump blood through the arteries and veins into and out of the lungs in order to exchange carbon-dioxide for oxygen more efficiently. Our muscles grow stronger and are better able to assist in supporting our skeleton.

Another benefit of running and of course exercise in general is weight loss. Weight gain is a simple mathematical equation, number of calories in – number of calories used = positive calorie balance (weight gain) or negative calorie balance (weight loss). Running also causes our metabolism to increase which means our body burns more calories than if we did no exercise at all.

Another very important benefit to running which is often underestimated is stress reduction. The first paragraph of this article paints a picture of the positive impact running has on stress. Running is relaxing and gives us time to ourselves, which in this day and age is not something have too much of. Running takes our minds off our worries (even if it’s just for a half hour to a hour or so). If you are currently a runner I’m sure you are aware of that relaxed feeling you experience after a run. For me, running after work is tough, I’m tired, depending what I’ve eaten during the day will repeat on me during a run, but on days where I am unable to run in the morning and I force myself to run after work, after a km or 2 I begin to feel good and when I finish the run, I always feel great. I’m relaxed, I have more energy and the day no longer seems that bad. Stress is a silent killer. We live in a very stressful age, always bombarded by noise and activity and if we do nothing about the stress in our lives, it will kill us!

Of course there are many other benefits to running and I’m sure off the top of your head you can think of many more.

In order to run and improve in running, we have to run. So for example, swimming is an excellent workout and it’s great for core strength, but we can’t simply swim and hope to improve in our running. If we want to improve our running, then we have to run.

By following a program and being correctly coached we are able to build up gradually and become better runners over time without ending up injured. Far too many runners end up doing too much too soon and as a result end up with injuries like shine splints, ITB, plantar fasciitis or stress fractures. If you don’t know what any of these injuries are; keep it that way! If however you do know all about these injuries than you will know that they are not fun to have and take a very long time to heal.

Injuries are very demotivating and frustrating and can put us off running for life. Injuries are NOT a part of running and no one should have to run with injuries. If we build up gradually we train the body and strengthen the body to run further and quicker without causing undue stress to our muscles or bones.

Running is a wonderful sport and I hope that you will find great joy and pleasure in your running throughout your life.

I end off with one of my favorite quotes by Eric Liddell, “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

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Let’s face it, we’re nothing like our ancestors. We don’t sleep in caves, we don’t hunt for food, we don’t gather berries, and we don’t run across the grass planes barefoot, not all of us that is. We sleep on soft cushioned mattresses with soft cushioned pillows, we drive to work, we buy our food in neatly wrapped packages, we sit behind computers all day and then for an hour or so each day, we run.

The problem with this is not that we weren’t born to run. The problem is that our lifestyles have made us soft. With gym work and some strength training we can greatly reduce the risk of injury and we should be doing everything we can possibly do to ensure injury free running.

Given our rather sedentary lifestyles and our “soft” bodies as a result of that lifestyle, exercise and running puts a stress on our muscles that we are not used to.

Here are 4 survival tools that will help us keep our muscles loose and help keep us injury free. I call these the “Runners Survival Kit”. A must have for all runners.

 1. Foot massage.

Your foot has many small muscles and tendons that enables it to keep you balanced and to move you forward. It is important to have strong feet as your feet absorb the load of each foot strike when you run.

Buy yourself a message ball that you can roll up and down the bottom of your foot. This works wonders and increases the blood flow in your feet, releases knots and keeps the plantar fascia from tightening up.

Four to five minutes on each foot is all you require each day.

2. The Foam Roller.

Foam rollers are readily available and cost around R 200. You do get fancier more expensive models but the basic cheap roller does the job.

A foam roller is a great way to break down those nasty knots and tight spots that form in your calves, glutes, quads and ITB. In case you think you don’t have any, just get onto a foam roller for a few minutes and we’ll talk again.

Here are some ways to use your foam roller in order to massage out any knots that may have formed. Spend about 2-3 minutes per side per exercise every day or every second day while watching TV. The trick is to move up and down the roller as slowly as possible, when you find a spot that hurt hold it there for 30-60 seconds before moving on. You will also find that one direction hurts more than then other, focus on the direction that hurts more.

3. Thera-band.

A thera-band is that stretchy rubber band you often find at physios. It comes in different colours and that’s not so that you can match the band to your socks. The different colours denote different tensions. The bands are very cheap and you can get them from your closest physio. Buy a mix of colours so that you can play with the different tensions. Also start with the easy tension and gradiaully build and move up.

The bands are an excellent way to strengthen any weak areas you may have such as your feet and ankles. Again, these bands can be used for a few minutes a day in your lounge while watching TV and provide a huge benefit.

Here are some exercises (there are 100’s more) which are brilliant for runners:

4. Tennis ball.

A tennis ball? Seriously?

A tennis ball is an excellent massage device for your glutes. The foam roller helps to a point with the glutes but you simply cannot get in deep enough as the surface area of the foam roller is too great.

A tennis ball gets right in onto those tight painful spots in the glutes. Roll onto the spot that hurts and then hold it there for 30 to 60 seconds with very small movements left, right, up and down.

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You’ve had a great holiday, you’re well rested, you’ve done some good training, you’re ready to take on 2013. That is until you step onto the scale.

“5kg’s heavier!! What the hell?” you say to yourself. “I know I pigged out, but I trained every second day.” Sound familiar?

There is no quicker way to put on weight than the holidays and of course we all know how difficult it is to once it’s attached itself to our waists.

Christmas and New Years are great celebrations and one can be forgiven for indulging and tasting all the puddings on offer on these two days. The problem comes in when we two days of indulging becomes three and three becomes four, etc, etc. And of course it would be one thing if we limited it to one meal, but we end up indulging at every meal, every day.

We start the day off with a greasy plate of fried eggs, chips, patty, baked beans, toast, butter and coffee or milkshake (sometimes both) from the nearest Wimpy or McDonalds. The food breaks down quickly into sugar and we experience the Fields Hill of sugar spikes followed very soon thereafter by the Death Valley of sugar lows. As we drive from breakfast an hour or two later toward the beach we find ourselves craving a chocolate or ice cream. Once we’ve washed the chocolate or ice cream down with a coke or crème soda our bodies again have this massive sugar high followed very closely with a massive sugar dip and then it’s lunch. A greasy burger and chips washed down with another coke and chocolate brownie (it’s holidays after all). Our mid-afternoon snack ends up been a large packet of salt and vinegar chips and perhaps we go for mineral water this time (as we’re feeling a little guilty, of course vitamin water is a good as drinking coke) and then we’re into supper. 500g T-bone, chips, some veg (we must get the nutrients in) and malva pudding and custard for dessert washed down with a few beers or wine and then it’s off to bed to begin the cycle all over again the following day.

And we wonder why we’re putting on weight? Sure, this might be a slight exaggeration of what we’re eating everyday while on holiday but you may be a little shocked if you took note of what you were shoving down your throat.

My suggestion is to keep a holiday eating log. Everyday make a quick note of what you’ve eaten throughout the day, don’t leave anything out. Often we eat extremely badly and when it comes to the end of the day we think quickly about what we’ve eaten and think we’ve had a good day. Sitting down for 5mins max to jot down what you’ve eaten and what you’ve drunk throughout the day will make you more aware of what you’re putting down your throat. When we become aware of what we’re eating we tend to be a little less hasty to shove down anything and everything we can get our hands on.

Here are a couple of suggestions for keeping things a little healthier on holiday:
•    Make sure you keep plenty of fresh fruit close at hand. Take some fruit with you to the beach or where ever you may be going during the day and instead of smashing an ice cream have a fruit.
•    Take plenty of water with you. You should be drinking 1.5-2l of water per day. By drinking water your energy levels remain constant as opposed to hitting the roof after drinking a coke or fruit juice.
•    Limit your indulgence meals. If you know you’re going out for supper have smaller healthier meals during the day.
•    Eat smaller portions more often, so 6 smaller meals throughout the day are far better than 3 large meals. Start with a healthy breakfast, snack of fruit and “naked” bar (available at DisChem) mid-morning, light lunch or main meal, mid-afternoon snack of fruit and low-GI rusks and then light meal or main meal for dinner. If you get peckish after dinner have a small plain yoghurt with honey and small helping of nuts.

A little discipline in terms of eating during the holidays means it’s that much easier to hit your racing weight early on in the new year.

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There’s a strange trend in South Africa when it comes to club running and I guess it may have something to do with Comrades.

Firstly, I’m not knocking Comrades, I love Comrades, it’s one of the most amazing events in the world and I think a must do for all runners. But the problem with Comrades and club runners in south Africa is this…. the running calendar revolves around Comrades and as such club runners tend to go into hibernation in July, come out for a few runs in October and November, go into hibernation for December and then want to start Comrades training on the 1st of January the beginning of the year.

 “So, what’s the problem with that? Comrades is only in May, that’s plenty of time isn’t it?” you might be asking. There’s nothing wrong with that if you want to run a very high risk of picking up an injury or if you want to run a mediocre Comrades. But come on, who of us really want to be injured and how many of us wouldn’t opt for a PB at Comrades if on offer?

January to Comrades is simply not enough time to cram both speed and endurance into our bodies. The truth of the matter is that after giving ourselves 6-8 weeks activce recover after Comrades we should forget about long distances and turn our focus to shorter distances with the aim of getting faster over those distances. Like it or not, getting faster over 5 and 10km’s means we get faster over 21km’s which means we get faster over 42km’s and therefore faster over Comrades. The faster we get the more we are able to put into the legs when we hit the peak training weeks for Comrades which means we are able to run faster over 90km’s than if we simply started in January. But I digress.

So, after recovering from Comrades we should focus on getting our speed up over 5 and 10km distances building gradually to a goal at the end of the year sometime in October or November. For many runners in Gauteng this is traditionally The Tough One 32km. If you’ve focused on the kind of training and build up I’ve been talking about then you’ll realise that actually Tough One is not as tough as everyone makes out. But because most club runners have been in hibernation, Tough One turns out to be an extremely long day in the hot sun!

If we spend the better part of the second half of the year focusing on speed by the time we hit January we are fast and ready to start our build up to Comrades or Two Oceans, and we’re on a much better wicket then we were the same time last year. January see’s us building gradually to a qualifying marathon sometime in Feb and beginning of March and because we’ve come into the new year faster we end up running a much faster marathon and securing a better seeding for ourselves.

Once we’ve qualified our focus then shifts to distance. March and April are the peak training weeks for Comrades and this is where we clock up the mileage and get time on the legs. Again because we’ve been consitent for the past 8 months as we pick up our mileage we don’t run the risk of injury. If we’re only starting in January we’re simply expecting too much too soon from our bodies and we’ll have injury and illness knocking on our doors quicker than Santa can slide down the chimney.

Ok, back to December. At this point I hope it’s become clear that December is an important month and why it’s important to keep our fitness ticking over through December. This is not to say that December must be a hard slog no rest training period. By all means take your training back a notch or two, but don’t stop completely. So instead of training for 6 days of the week you might only training for 3 or 4 days. Try as a minimum to train for at least 3 days in the week. Training sessions can be light interval, fartlek or strength sessions. An interval session would be something like 6 x 800m or 8-10 x 400m or 20 x 150m. A fartlek session is limited only by your imagination so something like 1 lamp hard 1 easy or 5-10 x 45-60 secs hard, 60secs easy or around a soccer field you can do 1 length hard, jog 3 lengths, 2 lengths hard, jog 2 lengths, 3 lengths hard, jog 1 length, 4 lengths hard, 2mins easy and then repeat. A Strength session would be powering up a short steep hill of 15 to 80m’s (the steeperer the hill the shorter the repeat), plyometric box jumps are also great for leg strength and power or short burts up stairs.

Personally I find December a great time to train. Work pressures are off and heading out for an early morning run (before the family wakes up) in the fresh, crisp still air of summer is a great way to get your day off to a great start.

Good luck with your December training and enjoy your holiday and time of rest.

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