My Fourth Comrades...

By Frank

Leaving in a less than half a day's time, 2AM later on board an Emirates flight to Dubai for transit before off to Durban to be precise, this will be my fifth and final report card on my build-up to my fourth Comrades Marathon, which is also the 90th edition in history happening this Sunday on 31 May 2015. After 3 years of experience and with this year's training of 1,618KM log by my beloved legs through about 180 plus odd hours from the beginning of the year till today, I guess I got no choice but to say I am ready for the challenge once again. At least the mind games in terms of training mileage will certainly be helpful.

Besides myself and Chee Kong going for our fourth, this year will also see some of my friends gunning for their back to back. Selva, Shanaz, Dr.Jagjit and Kai Yuan will be 4 of them. Besides, 2 novices from Malaysia, Zijill and Dr. Yani will join in the ranks too.

My journey to my fourth Comrades.

Training this year despite the usual time consuming and tiring process has been everything smooth sailing except for a bee sting back in April. And as per previous years, training for the Comrades Marathon though involves mostly running, does include weight and resistance training too, well at least for me but not exactly too hardcore on it.  A look back in training where it all started in January which normally is the easy month of base building. However, with the fitness and momentum gained from the end of last year, I pushed forward and tackled my first 100KM trail at the Hong Kong 100 as part of my "Bucket List To Do" and also training. Despite suffering from migraine mid way through the race, I nevertheless completed it without any further mishaps nor injury and carried on training for the month easy. And in that, January gave me 300KM worth of running. Off to a good start!

February came later where the shorter and also festive month poses a challenge. WIth Chee Kong back for Chinese New Year, some runs with him helps to keep the momentum going. And is also that this month started the speed training which involves interval, time trial, fartlek and also hill training which made me starting to hate every Tuesday of the week! But all in all, the target of the month was achieved with 260KM ran.

March otherwise known as "Hell March" is where the mileage increased. As like previous years, my highest distance will come from this month and with Gunung Nuang Ultra at the beginning of the month and Twilight Ultra Challenge at the end, it made things easier. 2 long runs sandwiching my other forms of training in between is certainly working for me this time and that gave me 453KM worth of running. And its also beginning this month that I joined up with Zijill who will be running her first Comrades in training together. We supported and back each other through the tough times on the road on Saturdays and Sundays, and I was really amazed on her performance. She will be one of the novice runner to watch out for this month end. We also got the Gold Coast Malaysia training group to assist us in training. With Jamie, Nick, Choon Yuen, Julia, Kew and few other new faces, it made the training more fun.

April saw me continuing my momentum from last month. And knowing that I've fallen sick in this month the previous years, I took extra precautions this time. I continued to work on speed on the weekdays and long runs on the weekend before ending the month with the Bukit Larut 26KM run to train for hills, in conjunction with my final long run too. And with that, the hard training was done with 328KM covered this month.

My life in words.

And quickly enough, May came. After all the hard work, this month can be pretty frustrating due to tapering. The urge to run but the need to slow down to recover was what was required for this month. And this month was a little stretched as I was launching my biography in conjunction with this year's Be Frank campaign. And not only that, as usual some people down in head office just do not understand the the term staff welfare! But in all, I made it through together the usual suspects with Zijill and the Gold Coast group, and I rounded up my training yesterday with an easy run. But of course there will be a couple of very easy runs more at Durban before race day just to keep the legs fresh.

Live tracking for Comrades runners.

This is also my second year under the guidance of a coach. And for the first time too, this year's Comrades is trained using the MAF (Maximum Aerobic Function) or more commonly known as the Maffetone method. Besides, I was partially following the Low Carbs High Fat diet rules, where one of the most important element I followed was the massive reduction of sugar and lactose from my diet. And judging from the work done and also effort, and the "Up' run being my stronger direction, it looks pretty sure that I will excel in this year's race. However, I shall just remain realistic as anything can happen on race day. Anything from body condition to weather will have an effect on the overall results. Besides, due to road works, there will be an extra 877M to this year's route totaling to 87.72KM in total distance making it one of the longest "Up' run in Comrades history. The bar is raised pretty high for me but I will be happy to just better my time. And whether will the body be able to take the punishment will be a totally different story.

The list is long but I sincerely would like to thank those who have played a part in my buildup this year whether in support, donations and also the long training together. The pain, sweat, tears, laughter and blood for some, you all have my biggest THANK!

And reality sets in now. My fourth Comrades Marathon is on the horizon and here's to the hills! Let's Bamba Iqhaza! And yes, I am so gonna miss the pooch back home.

Come home quick to play with me!