Tag: Ultra

Comrades 2010: Official announcement

Below is the official announcement of the 2010 Comrades marathon (an 89 KM ultra, and the world’s biggest ultramarathon, between Peitermaritzburg and Durban in South Africa) from the latest Comrades newsletter. I am already looking forward to pressing the buttons for registration on my PC on Nov 1st, actually the day on which I will be running my 5th consecutive Airtel Delhi Half Marathon as well. Looking forward to the day already.

Race Day for 2010 Comrades Marathon is Sunday 30 May.

2010 ANNOUNCEMENT

The overwhelming response for entries for the 2009 Comrades Marathon is hopefully a sign of the excellent interest in the Comrades Marathon. The 17% increase in race entries this year must be attributed to the extensive marketing campaign undertaken by the CMA, both locally and abroad.

The 2010 Comrades Marathon also coincides with the 85th anniversary of The Ultimate Human Race. 2010 will see the race run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, a down run. The CMA will enter into an extensive marketing campaign, through various mediums, as well as road shows across South Africa. The CMA has also put in place a comprehensive international marketing campaign, the first step of which has been achieved with the appointment of International Ambassadors across Europe, South and North America, and Australia.

Entry numbers for the 2010 and 85th anniversary of the Comrades Marathon will be capped at 20000 runners, and no extensions will be entered into. Thus making the 2010 run a special event as the CMA has never had a cut off number in the past. We are confident that this number will be achieved very quickly as in 2000 we received 24000 entries. Therefore we urge all runners and potential runners that wish to run in 2010 to take careful note of the entry process and the closing dates. We therefore request that you enter early to avoid disappointment. Entries will be done in 2 phases.

Phase 1

1 September 2009 entries will open to all previous Comrades Runners. Phase 1 will be capped at 15000 entrants and will close on 31 October 2009, or whichever comes first (eg. if we receive 15000 entries by the 10 October 2009 then no further entries will be accepted).

Phase 2

1 November 2009 entries will open to all Novices and will be capped at 5000. Entries will close on 30 November 2009, or whichever comes first (eg. if we received 5000 novice entries by 15 November 2009 then no further entries will be accepted).

Total number of entries will be capped at 20000.

Qualifying period for 2010 will be from 24 May 2009 to 26 April 2010. Runners who finished the 2009 Comrades Marathon can use their finishing time as a 2010 qualifier.

As in 2009, runners will be able to enter before they qualify. This means while all entries will have to meet the entry criteria above, runners will still be allowed to qualify in official qualifying races up until the month of April, with the 26th April as the final closing date. Upon qualification, runners simply need to give the time and details of the qualifying race through to the CMA office. Upon receiving the qualifying information the runner’s entry will be confirmed.
Failure to meet or submit your qualify details will result in your entry being rejected and your details will be removed from our database, which means that you will not receive a postcard, goodie bag or runners t-shirt. Under no circumstances will refunds be made.

Comrades marathon 2009: Finisher stats

The most interesting stat from Comrades marathon, 2009 (picked up from Comrades forums). This displays the medals people received versus the actual seeding/group with which they started the race. The box in green below looks most attractive to me for the best chance to do a bronze. That is the D seeding (sub 4 hour marathon qualifier), and the next best one is the F (sub 4:20 marathon qualifier).

Gold Wally Hayward Silver Bill Rowan Bronze Vic Clapham DNS DNF
A 18 11 453 393 108 21 77 74
B 2 84 694 324 35 81 58
C 12 636 973 93 157 70
D 1 165 1492 284 179 140
E 7 358 386 99 146
F 30 887 497 152 156
G 3 429 755 164 259
H 1 6 134 714 240 596
20 11 551 1934 4705 2785 1149 1499

For reference, below are the medal cutoff times for the event:

 Gold Medals
 First 10 Men and Women 
 Wally Hayward Medals
 Position 11 to sub 06:00:00
 Silver Medals
 sub 06:00:00 to sub 07:30:00
 Bill Rowan Medals
 sub 07:30:00 to sub 09:00:00
 Bronze Medals
 sub 09:00:00 to sub 11:00:00
 Vic Clapham Medals 
 sub 11:00:00 to sub 12:00:00

Below are the marathon qualifying times required for the group seeding.

Batch
   42.2 km
A
   3:00:00
B
   3:20:00
C
   3:40:00
D
   4:00:00
E
   Green Number Club Members
F
   4:20:00
G
   4:40:00
H
   5:00:00

Comrades marathon 2009 results: Muzhingi wins

The race is still on for the thousands, as the winners are already through with theirs. More than 12,000 runners from 47 countries participated in the Comrades this year, a rise in participation count of 17% over the previous year.

Complete results: results.comrades.com
Track Your runner: Comrades track your runner service
Live finish line video: Comrades video streaming service

Last years 3rd place finisher, 33 year old Zimbabwean Stephen Muzhingi won the mens race in a time of 05:23:26, which is the second fastest time ever, behind Russian Leonid Shvetsov’s 2007 time of 05:20:49. Stephen was 3rd in Comrades 2008, 7th in 2007 and was 4th in this years Two Oceans. Defending champion Leonid Shvetsov (winner 2007, 2008) was second in 05:33:05 and Charles Tjiane (South African) was third in 05:34:18.

From twitter updates, I can see that out of the top 10 finishers, 9 are from Africa (including 8 from SA) and 1 Russian. Watching the live streaming video from the Comrades website, though a defective power adapter means I am out of sound.

Russian twin sisters Olesya (winner 2007) and Elena Nurgalieva (winner 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008) lead from the front, and were separated by just 3 seconds at the finishing line, finishing 1st and 2nd respectively. Oleysya’s time was 6:12:08 and Elena (last year winner) finished in 6:12:11. The twins had earlier won at the Two Oceans 56 KM run this year, where they finished the run with their hands joined, and the judges had a tough time deciding who was first!

Russian Tatyana Zhirkova (winner 2005) was 3rd in 6:15:00, another 3 minutes behind. 36 year old  Farwa Mentoor was the first South African to finish, in 5th position in 6:45:03. Farwa has a number of top 10 places over the last several years.

Results (Mens):
  1. Stephen Muzhingi (ZIM) 5:23:27
  2. Leonid Shvetsov (RUS) 5:33:10
  3. Charles Tijane (SA) 5:34:21
  4. Fusi Nhlapo (SA) 5:36:17
  5. LucasNonyana (SA) 5:39:29
  6. Mncedisi Mkhize (SA) 5:41:14
  7. Bongmusa Mthembu (SA) 5:41:52
  8. Peter Molapo (SA) 5:42:25
  9. Bethuel Netshifthefhe (SA) 5:43:35
  10. Harmans Mokgadi (SA) 5:44.49 
Results (Womens):

  1. Olesya Nurgalieva (RUS) 06:12:12
  2. Elena Nurgalieva (RUS) 06:13:14
  3. Tatyana Zhirkova (RUS) 06:15:03
  4. Marina Myshlyanova (RUS) 06:30:42
  5. Farwa Mentoor (SA) 06:45:33
  6. Lesley Train 07:01:07
  7. Marina Bychkova 07:03:24
  8. Lindsay Van Aswegen 07:08:55
  9. BelindaWaghorn 07:09:36
  10. Kashmira Parbhoo 07:16:13

Some interesting stats from the event:

12,952 runners entered the race, 11,505 started the race, 10,006 finished the race. So, 86.9 % of the starters finished the race.

On the medical front, 671 runners required treatment, which is less than 2% of the field. 58 runners were hospitalized. 3 runners had seizures and were admitted to intensive care.

Comrades marathon 2009: A Preview

Just 5 days to go for the 84th edition of this ultramarathon, which will be run on a Sunday (unlike past traditions), May 24th. This years run is an 89KM ‘down’ run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. The cutoff time for the race will be 12:00 hours, which means that the race starts at 5:30 am and any runners still running beyond 5:30 pm are on their own.

Defending champion Leonid Shvetsov of Russia will be there again, looking to break his down run record. He owns both the up run (2008) and down run (2007) records.


Participation numbers: 12,890 runners from 47 countries. This includes 590 international runners, and the rest from South Africa. 2404 runners will be running Comrades for the first time.

For the first time ever, live coverage from the finish line will be available on the event website at Finish Line Live Footage. I can see the footage today (day before race) and its already evening and the stadium no longer resembles a cricket ground on which the matches of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket happened just a few days back!

There is a special SMS service for runners to track their progress as they cross the 5 timing mats on the route. An SMS message will be sent to the specified number indicating the time when the runner reached the specific point. Users will also be able to follow their runner by entering the running number of the person at the Track Your Runner page, and see the live status.

Top Contenders (Mens):

  • Leonid Shvetsov (Nedbank)
  • White Modisenyane (Nedbank)
  • Gift Kelehe (Nedbank)
  • Joseph Maerman (Nedbank)
  • Harmans Mokgadi (1st SA runner home in 2008) (Nedbank)
  • Lucas Nonyana (Nedbank)
  • Frans Kutu (Nedbank)
  • Jaroslaw Janicki, former champion from Poland (Mr Price)
  • Fusi Nhlapo (Mr Price)
  • Sipho Ngomane (Mr Price)
  • Butiki Jantjes (Mr Price)

Top Contenders (Womens):

  • Twins Elena and Olesya Nurgalieva (Mr Price)
  • Marina Bychkova (Mr Price)
  • Lindsay Van Aswegan (SA) (Nedbank)
  • Farwa Mentoor (Bonitas)

Weather outlook looks to be good, with temperatures peaking at 24 degree celcius, and there may be some cloud cover in the afternoon.

Hear Coach Norrie Williamson’s podcasts at The Witness website. Useful information on eating, hydration, tapering, strategies, avoiding injuries, etc.

Want to calculate your Comrades finish time, check out www.runner.co.za.

Want to take a Comrades quiz, check out www.witness.co.za.

Comrades 2010: Training plan and Strategy

I am dividing my training plan for Comrades 2010 into three parts or phases.

Phase 1: Base building phase

This will be the first 3 months of my training, May to July, and will mostly be oriented towards bringing regularity to my running, ensuring that I am running 5-6 days a week, that too in the hot summer months. Another focus area would be to build up speed for Phase 2. I am trying to do most of the running in the mornings, unlike other seasons where it is mostly evenings, and which is a bit disruptive in the daily scheme of things. I am following Hal Higdon’s Spring training programme (Intermediate) for this phase.

Phase 2: Improve pace

The second phase is another 3 months duration, August to October. The focus in this phase would be to improve my pace so that I get a reasonable time at the Comrades. This phase will have a key element, which is to prepare well for the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon, which happens on Nov 1st. The target time for this would be 1:45. This will also be an incremental step towards getting a good qualifying time for the Comrades marathon (Yes, Comrades does require a sub 5 hours qualifying time, and have different gradings/starting positions for qualifiers based on their times. I would be following Hal Higdon’s Half marathon training plan (Intermediate) for this.

Phase 3: Qualifying for Comrades

This is less of a phase, and more of an intermediate goal from Phase 4. I am targeting qualification with a sub 4:20 marathon time, intending to do this at the Dubai marathon on Jan 22nd, 2010. This will place me in Batch F starters. An alternate / exceeds goal here is to qualify with a sub 4:00 marathon time, which will put me in Batch D, and saving precious minutes waiting to cross the starting line. Why Dubai, and why not Mumbai marathon (which happens on Jan 17th), from the weather statistics I can see Dubai at 15-20 degrees C, while Mumbai can be anything like 25-30 degrees C or beyond, and that I am sure will make one big difference to the qualifying time.

Phase 4: Core Comrades Training

This will be a six to seven months training phase starting November, where each and every run would be oriented towards doing well at Comrades. There are two popular training plans for Comrades available on the web.

  • Don Oliver’s training plan : This is more on the lines of Hal Higdon’s plan, where emphasis is to gradually build up weekly mileage by small increments to the weekly run, and small increments to the one big long run in the weekend. Started in August for 2010.
  • Norrie Williamson’s training plan : This plan is different in philosophy, advocating a variety of runs like hill repeats, track repeats, fartleks, and the load of the one big training run is spread over 2-3 runs, mostly one mid-week, and two long runs over the weekend. 2010 plan awaited.
  • Lindsey Perry’s training plan: Lindsey is the Official Comrades Coach nowdays, and his plans are quite popular on the discussion forums and there is a separate section called ‘Ask the Coach’ there. Lindsey’s plans are for sub-9 hour, sub-11 hour, and a Finishers training program. Started in July for 2010.

I have yet to decide on which one to go for. All above seem to be equally popular with the running community, but I am probably more inclined towards the Don Oliver plans.