You’ve trained hard and sacrificed a lot, and now the Comrades is only two weeks away! During the next two weeks your Comrades dream can be made or lost - no matter how hard you have trained, what you do from now until race day will help determine what happens to you come 1 June 2014.

• Cut your toenails and do not go for any pedicures, especially if you have never been for these before. Leave this till after race day.
• Enjoy our club’s Comrades function on the 24th of May
• No matter who you chat to or how nervous you feel, always say to everyone you are ready for the big day and feel good
• DO NOT listen to how much more hard training and how many hundreds of kilometres more your club buddies or friends have done in their preparation for Comrades
• Keep on visualising the race - from getting up and lining up, through running to crossing the finish line
• Go to bed early, keep up your healthy eating habits and go for your vitamin B injection
• If you take supplements on the run, buy them now and put them aside with all your other race day goodies
• Prepare two check lists, the first for everything you need to pack and take with to Durban, and the second for everything you need to remember on race morning.
• Stay away from family, friends or colleagues who are sick or have colds/flu
• If you get sick now, consider not going to the Comrades - next year there will be another Comrades!
• Support the training sessions organised by the club and dress warmly after training

Happy running!
Coach Rossouw

You’ve trained hard and sacrificed a lot, and now the Comrades is only three weeks away! During the next 
couple of weeks your Comrades dream can be made or lost - no matter how hard you have trained, what you do from now until race day will help determine what happens to you come 1 June 2014. 

• Study the route: no need to know it inside out, but know where the hard parts are and where you can ease up. 
• Decide now at which points you want to be within what time, and decide where you are going to take in your nutrition or special muty. 
• Keep up your faster, shorter weekday runs. 
• Make sure you get enough sleep. 
• Stay away from family, friends or colleagues who are sick or have colds/flu. 
• If you get sick now, consider not going to the Comrades - next year there will be another Comrades!
• Support the training sessions organised by the club and dress warmly after training. 

 
Happy running!
Coach Rossouw

Five weeks to go to Comrades 2014! You have done all the training and it is now time to taper and sharpen 
yourself for the big race. Make sure you are all sleeping enough and maintain your immunity. Visualize the race at every opportunity you have. 
 
Identify one or two short races and run them at 30 seconds faster than your anticipated Comrades pace. If 
you haven’t done any speed training, take it easy so that you do not injure yourself.  You can still do hill repeats on a Monday with the club and two Klapperkop runs on a Sunday just to get the final heat exposure you need. We have the Wally race on Thursday – please come and support/run this well-organised event. The Jackie Mekler 25 km run should be an easy run though. 

Please support the training sessions organised by the club. 
 
Happy running. 
Coach Rossouw

The latest Comrades Programme has been posted on the programmes page. Just a few important points to take note of with regards to the programme:

• This programme is a 10 week programme to take you to the Old Mutual Om die Dam 50 km
  
• This is a built up programme to the specific Comrades programmes
  
• These programmes (Silver, Bill Rowan and finish) will be available after Om die Dam
  
• There will be an information session by me, Coach Rossouw at the club house on 21 January after the time trials
  
• It is important to attend this talk to understand the philosophy behind the programmes
  
• It will be an opportunity to get answers to all your questions regarding your personal training
  
• Mentors will be introduced to take guidance of different groups
  

With the new training programme and the buddy (mentor) system we aim to get the best Comrades results in the history of the club. It is therefore of extreme importance that you fall in with this programme, either on your own or preferably as part of one of the groups. 

We also want to manage the substitutions properly this year. If you entered for Comrades but won’t be able to run please let Wynand know immediately. On that note, he wants all the names of members who did not enter but want to run this year. We are sure that you will all be able to get an entry by means of a substitution.

Please direct any questions regarding the programme to our club captain Joy Nicholl at  training@irenerunner.co.za


Regards
Coach Rossouw