I have been very slack blogging lately..Skyrun was not the greaest weekend albeit an awesome experience.
Eventually on my 4th attempt at qualifying I succeeded at Irene 48.
Sept last year at Vaal River 42 I was great to 21km but lost it in the second hals with wind and ....
Feb I did Sasolburg 42 and just felt I was too slow at 21.. and at 32 felt I was a few minutes slow. I had Tobie encouraging me but just had nothing to give. He finished in 4:59 having left me with 1200m to go.. I even started cramping the last km and just felt flat..another bad day at the office.
Mar we did Kosmos and I really dont know I thought I was going fats enough but my watch said otherwise. With 10km to go I needed sub 7 so slowed down and allowed Kypie to catch me and we ended together. He had qualified at Vaal river so had no pressure.
Apr my last attempt was Irene 48 and never having done the route has advantages but also disadvantages.. I had a great race to 38km.. Once again Tobie pulled me through a rough patch. The last 10km are tough hills.. I nearly cramped to a halt at 46km but walked just fast enough to finish.. 5:55 got me in to Comrades... My latest qualifier yet!!
So this year is a bit longer normally on the down we say that 8/km is fine for a finish! This year I reckon on my GPS I need sub 7:45/km to finish in time.
Below I took the official mat distances calculated my estimated GPS distance at the mats..Using the exact cutoffs I calculated the pace required on exact and gps(est) distance.
Mark Dowdewell a maths professor has analyzed Comrades results and the stats seem to show that one needs to beat the cutoffs by 30 minutes. the two graphs below show this to be the case. 30 mins before cutoff the chance of finishing is in the 90%. it rapidly drops off from there..
For my 3 down Comrades I have done 11:52 then 11:45 then 11:40. My goal this year is 11:3X which could be hard with the longer route but I think if I plan correctly I can achieve it. Kypie Liz and I will start in CC batch which means we save about 6 minutes at the start , this almost makes up for the extra distance.
I am on 1198km as of today so will be close to 1400 again this year, which I think is an adequate training for the 5 months. All this seems to bode well for a successful Comrades
Walk well
Eventually on my 4th attempt at qualifying I succeeded at Irene 48.
Sept last year at Vaal River 42 I was great to 21km but lost it in the second hals with wind and ....
Feb I did Sasolburg 42 and just felt I was too slow at 21.. and at 32 felt I was a few minutes slow. I had Tobie encouraging me but just had nothing to give. He finished in 4:59 having left me with 1200m to go.. I even started cramping the last km and just felt flat..another bad day at the office.
Mar we did Kosmos and I really dont know I thought I was going fats enough but my watch said otherwise. With 10km to go I needed sub 7 so slowed down and allowed Kypie to catch me and we ended together. He had qualified at Vaal river so had no pressure.
Apr my last attempt was Irene 48 and never having done the route has advantages but also disadvantages.. I had a great race to 38km.. Once again Tobie pulled me through a rough patch. The last 10km are tough hills.. I nearly cramped to a halt at 46km but walked just fast enough to finish.. 5:55 got me in to Comrades... My latest qualifier yet!!
So this year is a bit longer normally on the down we say that 8/km is fine for a finish! This year I reckon on my GPS I need sub 7:45/km to finish in time.
Below I took the official mat distances calculated my estimated GPS distance at the mats..Using the exact cutoffs I calculated the pace required on exact and gps(est) distance.
I am on 1198km as of today so will be close to 1400 again this year, which I think is an adequate training for the 5 months. All this seems to bode well for a successful Comrades
Walk well
