Comrades 2020

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  • Fido2DogsFido2Dogs ✭✭✭
    JAR that sucks. But if I can inject a grain of optimism, a clubmate had to have an ankle op which meant he had to spend months prehabbing, then in a boot, then rehab, but he is back running now. So sometimes all the aaaaarrggh does come good (sort of).
    I am out of Abo though. Did Up Tow Down Flow half today (met Peter B briefly! Which was lovely)(at the start obvs) and while I did actually finish... Yeah I am just not in good enough shape for marathon training. Crunchy knee (can't be de-crunched but I *can* lose a few kgs) with some ITB issue going on a few inches above, and PF (mainly the other foot). Too much in too bad a state. And I've made enough unwise decisions in my time to be allowed to be semi sensible this time.
    So if anyone can recommend a beginner friendly marathon  (a bit of hoopla, flat, people around in 4:45-5:15h group) this autumn for my OH? Bonus points if it has an accompanying HM that starts 2:30 after the mara (so I can join him for 2nd half you see).
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    F2D Chester ain't too hilly, its a single circuit starting and finishing at the same spot, and, they run a metric marathon, 26k (is that 16 miles) in the opposite direction, out and back, so the full marathoners kinda merge with the metric marathoners 8 miles out from the finish. I don't know how the timings go, but I suspect you could ambush Mr F2D at that point and run 8 miles in with him.
  • Wow, lowrez, that's an amazing description of your Comrades experience! Well done escaping the unpleasant marshal.
  • Slow DuckSlow Duck ✭✭✭
    JAR - so sorry to hear that your injury is serious enough to require surgery - I hope it all goes well.

    Debra - congratulations on a great performance.

    lowrez - great report - all the different emotions of the day captured really well...
  • Slow DuckSlow Duck ✭✭✭
    Fido - Lanzarote in December is on a fairly flat course along the coast - out and back for the marathon and the half starts at the turn around point and uses the 2nd half of the marathon course...
  • lowrez, great report. Obviously I can't visualize the route but certainly enjoyed your write up.

  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    Fido2Dogs sorry to hear about your knee, ITB and PF issues, hope they get better soon. I don't know if it's just a placebo effect, but I started taking glucosamine for my crunchy knee and it seems not to have bothered me as much recently.
    I saw Running Crazy have places for Lanzarote. I was thinking about Malta Marathon next March with them as my back up plan if I pick up an injury and can't do Abo. I think it's net 200 metres downhill, so a mini-down run. But hopefully that won't be necessary. They've also still got a few places left for Berlin this September. I ran Berlin in 2017 with them and it was really well organised, if anyone missed out on the ballot.
    Great report lowrez, felt I was really there with you. Fantastic run at Lakeland Debra, and thanks for the link, it was fascinating to be able to track the race. And sorry to hear you're going to need surgery JAR, I hope it goes well and you can start rehab soon.
  • Lowrez - great report. Shows but a few of the traumas you were dealing with
  • Fido2dogs - sorry to hear about all your various injuries. Done the whole PF think which is awful. Still spend my life deciding what shoes to wear. Sadly comfort now usually instead of fashion and had ITB issues after my 10 in 10 earlier in the year. Hoping I'm on the right side of that now. My hairdresser (avid cyclist) recommended cortaflex to me
  • Fido2DogsFido2Dogs ✭✭✭
    Lowrez that was Joycean! It Yes it is the journey and in a way has anyone had the full Comrades experience if they've never DNF'd?
     As you rightly guessed the ideal would be some arrangement of events which allowed me to mule for OH in the last miles! But that is if he doesn't cop out now sooo.

    SD I did see Lanza but it might be a bit warm for him. Quite tempted anyway as #canaries! 
    Baldstan I am a big fan of the RC trips though and have done Malta five(?) times - would like to go back and do the half one day. Deffo recommend Malta. There are some ups tho but as it's net downhill it's still fast, I got 4:08 there one year and that's my fastest time anywhere outside the 3 in Eindhoven. (Have also done 5h there so can confirm back end perfectly fine too !). Have ordered some glucosamine!  Have had a massage and feel a bit perkier now.
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    edited July 2019
    F2D sorry your cogs are starting to grind, hopefully the lubricants suggested by others will reduce, nay even eradicate, the jarring. I had to look up "Joycean" and am incredibly flattered, thank you and the same to everyone else who liked my pulp non-fiction :) If I was ever going to DNF I couldn't think of a more marvelous way of doing it :D Mr Shouty actually made me last man on the course, although I suspect the guy who passed me at the bottom of Pollys would have hauled me in quite easily anyway.
  • Fido2DogsFido2Dogs ✭✭✭
    Lowrez if there hadn't been at least one forthright and forceful (she said delicately) marshall, you might have worried you weren't in SA!!
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    edited July 2019
    In a way it was reassuring that the law was being laid down so severely. It made the climb up Pollys kind of a clandestine affair hidden from his forthright perception of the "rules"; I was unsure once I got through the Umlaas Road Interchange just how far I would be allowed to get. Mightily glad he was not at the top of Pollys to berate me further :D
  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    Thanks Fido2Dogs, I might well give Malta a go then. Always been curious to visit the island since reading Ernle Bradford's history books as a schoolboy. It's not an AIMS or IAAF recognised race, but I take it Comrades would still accept it as a qualifier if I needed to use it?
  • Mc HillyMc Hilly ✭✭✭
    F2D, if you are considering Chester as a possibility, today is the last day for discounted entry fees, prices go up at midnight tonight!

  • Fido2DogsFido2Dogs ✭✭✭
    Oh goodness Baldstan I have never heard of them not taking a qualifier!
    If you've not been there (Malta) is sooo much to see. Catacombs. Inlaid marble tombstones in the cathedral. The 5,000 year old temples. (some may need advance booking so get that done early, the one underground iirc). The hop on hop off bus goes to one temple which is otherwise a PITA to get to by bus (normally the buses are fab). The war rooms in the cliffs at Valetta. The old City of Rabat/Mdina and the jolly fishing village of Marxallokk. The noonday gun at Valletta (nice place to wander and there used to be a cafe right next to it (the gun).
    Day after the marathon the harbour tour is good - there is a LOT of harbour and you're sitting down! 
    Race is good down run prep as bus to start from Sliema at dawn then gets warmer as you run back down there.
  • Baldstan, my qualifiers have been really small unknown marathons - Dymchurch, Betteshanger. Not a problem.
  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    Malta sounds irresistible Fido2Dogs. And good to know there'll be no problem if I did need to use it as a qualifier Debra.
    If anyone's doing NDW100 tomorrow, good luck. I'll be at Holly Hill Woods aid station at mile 65. Will try to ensure there's some mini bakewells there along with the usual supplies.
  • Great writing, i don't know how you manage to capture the feelings and events so vividly Lowrez but I could picture all of this when reading your report!   It's been such a hard year all round mate so I hope at the very least you can get the wonky leg sorted out so Terry and I can join you for an emphatic return to racing later on.   
    I haven't able to post or read much lately but thanks for everyone's very supportive messages.  I got an earlier date now which is next Friday (Aug 9th) at 7am .  Home bound for 4 weeks post-op and up to 12 weeks wearing a fixed leg brace.  They will drill a plastic anchor into the rear of my hip and then feed my muscle over and attach it to that  (I got a little light headed at that point so didn't need any more information).   It's definitely a long haul back but with an excellent chance of a full recovery.   Until then I'll just keep the fire and motivation burning by living vicariously through your various running exploits so keep them coming.  

    Have a good weekend or running! 
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    JAR, it had crossed my mind just how they might reattach things, despite its gruesomeness it sounds quite incredible and possibly an even more resilient fixture than mother nature invented with ordinary ligaments. I am so glad that there is an excellent chance of recovery.

    Thanks for the kind words on my scribing.

    Some do-gooder re-arranged my physio appointment to my local GP surgery, highly suspicious I have just rung them up and interrogated them, sure enough it would have been with, probably a very good physio, but not the high level person my GP asked for, so I have had it rearranged again, which will be in another town, there not being any mega physios local to me; the downside is it keeps slipping further and further away from me in date, currently Aug 23rd having originally been 17th, but I am going to make sure they do this right.

    Love the idea of an invalids limpy launch from Pen.C (we will have to take the charity boost to get in there no doubt, although Terry has a ticket to Pen.E doesn't he? He will no doubt haul us in before the first corner though!) It would be great to collapse in to the finish area all 3 of us hand in hand having run in our own bus all the way.

    Forward the Foundation! Positive vibes to all!

  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭
    I'm the admin on the private RWUKCT Strava group. Its meant for active contributors to this thread; I have been quite harsh in limiting membership based on that criterion after we abandoned the previous open incarnation when it became overrun with literally hundreds of people we had never heard of. Yesterday I rejected a request to join from someone I didn't recognise with an incredibly illustrious training regime, and, I am about to eject a couple of people whose names I vaguely remember but can't solidly link to current contributors on this thread. If you are suddenly cast adrift and feel miffed then its just me tidying up. PM me on here and when I understand who you are I will put you back in. Likewise if you are new to the thread and you would like to join just PM me so I can understand your username on here versus whatever you have called yourself on Strava.
  • Mac3Mac3 ✭✭✭
    JAR - glad you've got an earlier date, the sooner the better I suppose.  I know it's a long haul to recovery but at least it's positive that you can fix it and the long term outlook is also positive.  You've a chance to catch up on those Netflix series or the Ashes if you follow that! 
    Lowrez - I hope to read a more positive report next year...."I crested over Cowies like a breaking wave.....I'd left the 12 hour buses far behind in my wake and could cruise to the finish".
  • Lowrez, (and anyone else who was staring down the barrel of that email about getting international clearance to compete last year), a friend told me about this online running club that is UKA affiliated, but basically is for people who don't want the usual 'club' experience: https://lonelygoat.com/ . Might be worth making a note of in case the CMA or SA Athletics try the same scam this year and actually follow it through! 
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Max, if they try any shLt of any kind I won't be forced down a road I don't want to take. I hear goat is great roasted. I would still have come to Durbs, but very likely I would have been cheering you over the line from the international enclosure having driven up to PM extremely early in the morning.

    Mac, hoping to wax lyrical about reaching the stadium in daylight :D

    People may have seen this before, I just re-stumbled over it, a TEDxTalk that has nothing to do with the title, but is quite entertaining and revealing; has some references to Comrades. Also sadly illustrates how some people paid the ultimate price due to misinformation, shocking. 

  • DannirrDannirr ✭✭✭
    lowrez:  Tim Noakes is the epitome of misinformation himself.   He lost his credibility as a real scientist years ago.
  • To be fair a lot of scientists try to prove whatever the the person who is sponsoring them wants them to. Whats that to do with science? At least he had the guts to come out and say he'd been wrong.


  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    Dannirr, my only knowledge on Noaksey until you said that was Lore of Running and the vid I linked to. Doing a bit more research I can see he has fallen fowl of engaging in tweets and becoming anti-sound bitten by what must be hoards of disgruntled water peddlers and now fat peddlers. I'm pretty sure his reflections on water hold true in that talk though, as for his views on fat... I really like a Full English, so I've got my fingers crossed :D

    He remains a professor and he ain't been kicked out of his job. If anyone fancies a good further read, what looks like an impartial journalist wrote this and what looks like a friend of his wrote this about the not guilty verdict.

    I'm just presenting info but I have to say I personally think the verdict was technically correct; it wasn't about fat being good or bad though, it was about tweets not being the basis of a professional relationship between the warring proponents and therefore not ground that can legally be held up as such. If you tweet though, you deserve all you get!

  • DannirrDannirr ✭✭✭
    edited August 2019
    The charges against Noakes were a sham, and clearly there Medical establishment overstepped in a big way.  But that doesn't exonerate Noakes for the other nonsense he says, and sells.  The real problem is that some of his stuff is excellent, and some is commercial nonsense.  And most people don't know the difference.    As for still having his job - it is virtually impossible to dismiss someone who has tenure.

    Isn't it odd that the rest of the athletic world - athletes, trainers, and medical professionals - have not adopted his anti-carb views?    And isn't it strange that he now advocates using carbs during endurance events but not at other times - something that came about only after so many of his devotees started to waiver int heir support as their athletic performance suffered on restricted carbs?


    SS - I'm not sure I agree.  He says he was wrong about carbs and fat - but that is the very area where he is profiting from now.  So what was his motive really?     
  • 1owrez1owrez ✭✭✭

    There is a low carb/high fat thread on here somewhere, I stumbled over it a few months back, wasn't particularly looking for it, and I fell off my chair laughing; the last comment on it when I arrived was; "Are any of you silly buggers still alive in here..." It was awaiting a reply :D

    All the controversy is presented in that epic article I linked to; he appears to have lost rigour and prefers twitter battles to publishing peer reviewed research these days.

    I think a lot of the problem with these diet things is, when you set out doing anything you are full of gusto for it and will undoubtedly "be good" and lose some weight. So they all work...

  • baldstanbaldstan ✭✭✭
    I read a study a couple of months ago on a very small sample of runners, just 8 I think following a keto diet, and at the end 4 of them performed better, some considerably better, and 4 of them performed worse, some much worse. So the only thing I took away from that was that it works for some, at least in the short term, and not for others. Personally I just can't be bothered with all the effort a low carb/high fat diet would involve, and I certainly don't have the time to cook different meals for me and my kids. Plus beer and wine count as carbs of course...
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