Comrades legend shares running tips with athletes

Bruce Fordyce visited Vryheid parkrun and Vryheid Athletic Club on Saturday. As a nine-time Comrades Marathon winner (of which eight were consecutive), Fordyce is ranked as number 64 on the ‘100 greatest South Africans’ list. He gave a talk about his Comrades experiences and granted the audience an opportunity to ask questions. Everyone was enthralled as he launched into his speech… “I wasn’t quite sure how I would pitch this thing, so I thought what I would do is talk about my book. For all of you who run, this is it now. For me, the most important Comrades time is March until the end of May. It doesn’t matter what happened before. We, in Gauteng, always say that when the Cosmos flowers are out, it’s Comrades time. They are not there in January; everybody starts training too hard in the beginning and then they peak too early. The time is now – you put your head down and you train. It’s hard and it’s tough and you become a Prima Donna, but ask your family for forgiveness for losing your temper – but things have to go your way. You aren’t going out to parties… this is a critical time. 10 weeks of hard training and then you start cutting back before race day. You have to do a few long runs like a 40km and 50km, but you don’t race them – you use them as training runs. They are all for that one race – Comrades. It’s a very selfish race and it will reward those who give all their attention to Comrades. If you start flirting with other little things here, and a race there, Comrades will give you a big ‘klap’ because you have to be absolutely strong for Comrades,” quipped Bruce as he gave his humble advice. Described by some as ‘the only good tool for Comrades’, he wrote his book during lockdown. He laughingly says this is the only good thing that came from lockdown. “I wrote it for Comrades novices, but it’s a valuable tool all round. I took my training diaries from 1977, when I ran my first Comrades, and I put them into this book – with notes next to them on good ideas and bad ideas. Because the diaries alone are boring, I decided to add the stories of what happened to me during those times.” ‘Winged Messenger: Running your first Comrades Marathon’ is the name of Bruce’s book. When people ask him how he won again and again, he answers that he never changed the recipe. He took notes on each and every run in his training diaries; and when he had a good run, he flipped back in the book to see what he did.
The afternoon ended with local athletes asking questions, having a chat with Bruce and a book-signing.

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The news provided to you in this link comes to you from the editorial staff of the Vryheid Herald, a sold newspaper distributed in the Vryheid area.