Perhaps one of the most frequently made mistakes by runners after the Comrades marathon is to get back on the road too soon. The post Comrades recovery is a slow and deliberate process and cannot be hurried.

Many runners, but particularly novices get excited about running again after Comrades and use leg stiffness and pain as their readiness “indicators” As soon as the post race stiffness has worn off they believe they have recovered and they start training again.

However the damage that Comrades does to the body is deeper and more long lasting than many runners realize and recovery may not be complete.. A hard Comrades damages the legs but it also taxes the immune system severely. It drains the body of strength and leaves it weak and open to illness and sickness.

I learnt this back in 1979 when one of my great running rivals, Johnny Halberstadt ran second in the Comrades and two weeks later ran 5th in the Transvaal half marathon championships. I was amazed at his recovery and could not believe that someone could run a 5:50 Comrades and then a 65 minute 21 km only 14 days apart. I was still battling to run 5kms with still leaden legs.

Johnny continued to race well until about 6 weeks after the Comrades when he suddenly came down with a bad dose of flu. One problem followed another and he did not race well again until early the next year. The problem is he had simply not given himself enough time to recover from the 90 hard kilometers he had run in the Comrades. In the end his body forced him to take a break.

I believe in taking a decent two week break after the Comrades and then running gently and without any racing at all until the spring returns to my legs. This usually happens around the first week of July ( For a May Comrades) I return to proper training and racing in mid August.

So Nedbank Comrades runners take a decent break. Make certain that you have fully recovered before running hard again. There is plenty of time left to build up to the Soweto marathon in November
Besides it is mid winter. It is dark and cold out on the road. What other excuse do we need?