ON THE DAY
On the day of the race you must be at your peak in order to
reach your potential. Your body must be at its physical peak on this day. Not a
week before or a week later. This peaking at the right time comes from
self-knowledge. You must be correctly trained. It is an endurance race and you
must be trained for endurance and strength. Your training must achieve a
balance between over training (tiredness and injuries) and under training
(performing below potential). Such a balance is difficult to achieve and
achieved in different ways by different people.
On the day your physical condition is affected by factors
other than training done. One of these is the food eaten in the days preceding
the race. Stick with foods that suit you. Any illness in the weeks preceding
the race will affect your performance. You may think you have fully recovered
but the race is always the final arbiter and the race will find these chinks of
yours and expose them for the world to see.
Your mind must be at a mental peak on the day. You must be
relaxed and anxiously anticipating. You should be excited by the challenge. You
should be quietly confident. This confidence comes from knowing you have done
adequate training. Any emotional problems arising in the days preceding must be
solved. If you take into the race such problems; problems where your mind is not
still and cannot concentrate on the race then you will be found out. You don’t
run the comrades on aggression, anger or hate. Such things may help you win in
rugby or boxing but not in the comrades. They will only hinder.
On the day your knowledge about certain things also needs to
at a peak. You need to know all about the route and when you will have to push
hard and where there will be some respite. You need to know which clothing and
shoes will be best for you. Before you start you must decide what pace you will
run at and what liquids you will drink. Do your homework by experimenting
during training. Added confidence can be obtained by knowing you are prepared.
Each person is different and has
the potential to run a certain minimum time. This time will be different for
each person and you can’t compare yourself with somebody else. You can’t
disguise or hide what you were born with. It will always come out in the race
so it is best to accept your limitations before you begin.
Assuming your self-knowledge is perfect and this has
resulted in you being in perfect mental and physical condition for the race
then you will achieve your potential. Unfortunately nobody ever does which is
why everybody keeps on returning. All you can do during training and in your other
preparations is minimize your mistakes. Any mistake will slow you down but
nothing will make you run faster than what you are capable of.
The person who has the potential to run a 10:15 Comrades and
finishes in 10:30 has performed better than someone capable of 6:30 who
finishes in 8:30. This is irrelevant though as you should not be comparing yourself
with other people. You should be striving to improve your own time and to eliminate
your own mistakes. Your mistakes may not be obvious on the day but an honest
post mortem a few weeks later will help.
There is no such thing as a “bad run”. There is always a reason for a
bad run even if it isn’t immediately obvious to you.
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