On Sunday 13 June 2027, the 100th Comrades Marathon heads down from Pietermaritzburg City Hall to Durban, with an entry cap of 28,000 runners and 12 hours to get there. The short version of a good Comrades training plan: lay a foundation in January and February, start your real Comrades training in early March, qualify once, keep your longest run to 50km, do your strength work, walk on purpose and taper from the second week of May. Above all, do enough, never too much.
That last point matters more than any session in this guide, because here is the stat that should shape your whole year: 68% of runners who do not finish Comrades start the race with an injury. Most of them did not do too little. They did too much.
They often say victory goes to the brave. You are brave for taking this on, but at Comrades the spoils go to the cautious. This guide is how I want you to train for it. For entries, the route and race-day logistics, see my Comrades Marathon resource guide, and for the official race details, the Comrades race information page.
Two roads to the start line
How you should train depends on which of two roads you are on. The rules are the same for both, but the amount of training is not.
- You have done Comrades before, or you are an experienced marathon runner moving up in distance.
- You are new to this, maybe new to running altogether, and you have always wanted to say you have run Comrades.
These need different approaches, and I am always amazed at how quickly Comrades finishers forget what training for their first one felt like. “How can you expect to run 90km in one day if you cannot run 90km in a week?” is something I hear often around running clubs. It is advice that sends a lot of novices to the start line injured. If you are on the second road, err on the side of caution. You need far less than you think to have a good day.
My 10 rules for Comrades training
Every good cheat sheet starts with a list, so here is mine. Keep it somewhere you can see it for the next eight months:
- Recovery is key.
- Start slowly and build up.
- Qualify once, when you are ready.
- Train for the race, do not race to train.
- Block out the noise. Do enough, never too much.
- No one needs to run more than 50km in training.
- Strength training is crucial.
- If it hurts, stop.
- Walk.
- Know the race.
I go through each rule below, along with how long to train, which plan to follow, fuelling and the taper. I am laying down lots of rules, but if you want to be successful, pay attention.
How long does it take to train for Comrades?
Plan on five months of Comrades training from January to June, built on a healthy base from the second half of the year before. If you are starting from scratch, give yourself closer to a year. My official 2027 programmes start in July 2026, and as I point out in the Finishers programme, the serious Comrades work runs from March until race day.
| Phase | When | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Base | July to December | Easy running, strength, hills, first marathon |
| Foundation | January to February | Extra strength work, steady build, qualify if ready |
| Comrades training | March to early May | Peak weeks, long runs and races as training |
| Taper | Second week of May to 13 June | Cut back each week, arrive fresh |
Starting from scratch is possible, but it leaves no margin for setbacks. If that is you, read my guide to going from couch to Comrades in one year before you commit.
Rule 1: Recovery is key
Recovery is the single most important part of any training plan, because without it there is no progress. You do not get fitter while you train. You get fitter in between the training.
When you train, you do damage. Muscle breaks down, and bones, ligaments and tendons take a beating. Your body is also found wanting in how much oxygen it can take up and deliver to your working muscles, and in how quickly it clears the by-products of all that work.
It is in the downtime that your body first repairs the damage, then improves every structure and system so you handle the next long run or interval session better. Skip that process and you load on top of damage. That is the start of the injury cycle.
To recover properly:
- Prioritise sleep, especially in the peak months of March to May.
- Build in recovery weeks every three to four weeks, and after every marathon or big long run. My programmes include a recovery week every four weeks, and I warn against adding extra training in those weeks.
- Get your nutrition timing right. Take in carbohydrate with a small amount of protein within 45 minutes of finishing a session.
Normal tiredness lifts after the first 10-15 minutes of a run. If you feel bad at the start, still feel bad at the end and it carries over for days, you are not recovering and need to back off.
Rule 2: Start slowly and build up
Build up too quickly and you will meet shin splints, ITB syndrome or runner’s knee, the injuries I see most in runners starting out, and even more often in Comrades hopefuls under pressure to catch up. Your peak training belongs in March, April and early May, not January.
One of the biggest mistakes I see, especially from novices, is getting back from holiday in January and launching straight into full Comrades training. Lay the foundation in January and February, then train for Comrades from early March.
Not even the best athletes can sustain more than about 12 weeks of peak training. Even if you avoid injury, starting too early leaves you so mentally spent by April that you have nothing left for race day. And at Comrades, your training gets you to 70km. Your head gets you to the finish line.
Choosing the right Comrades training plan for your ability
Choose the plan your current race times support, not the one for the medal you would like. Following a plan that is ahead of your ability is one of the most common reasons runners arrive at Comrades overtrained or injured.
The official programmes I write for the Comrades Marathon Association set clear entry points based on recent half marathon or marathon times. If you are a Comrades novice, use the row that matches what you can run now:
| Programme | Finish time | Novices who can run |
|---|---|---|
| Silver | Sub 7:30 | A sub-90 minute half, or close to 3:00 for a marathon |
| Bill Rowan | Sub 9:00 | A sub-1:45 half, or close to 3:40 for a marathon |
| Robert Mtshali | Sub 10:00 | A sub-1:55 half, or close to 4:00 for a marathon |
| Bronze | Sub 11:00 | A sub-2:10 half, or close to 4:30 for a marathon |
| Finishers | Sub 12:00 | Anyone starting out, including halves slower than 2:15 |
Previous Comrades finishers move up based on their past result. My Bill Rowan programme, for example, is aimed at runners who have finished in under 10 hours, and my Bronze programme at those who have run under 10:30.
Be honest about borderline cases. In my Bill Rowan programme I warn that a marginal sub-3:30 marathon may not be enough for a sub-9 Comrades, especially if that marathon was on a fast course: sea level, downhill or cool.
If you want a plan that adapts to you, with structure for the whole build-up and support when life gets in the way, my Comrades Marathon Roadmap is built for exactly this race.
Rule 3: Qualify once, when you are ready
To run Comrades 2027 you need an official qualifying result submitted by 3 May 2027, and you only want to qualify once. The most common route is a marathon in 4:59:59 or faster.
The official qualifying standards include:
| Distance | Qualifying time |
|---|---|
| 42.2km | 4:59:59 |
| 50km | 6:09:59 |
| 56km | 6:59:59 |
| 64km | 8:14:59 |
| 80km | 10:34:59 |
Only official published results count. The race information page is explicit that Garmin, Strava and other personal tracking data are not accepted, and you also need to complete a medical questionnaire through your online entry profile.
When to qualify
If training is going well and you are building steadily, aim to qualify between late January and the beginning of March. Late January suits experienced runners who start the year with decent fitness, because an early marathon leaves time to recover and build back up before the March kick-off. Mid-February to early March is qualifying season in South Africa, with plenty of races, and most runners have had enough of a build-up by then.
If you are not ready, wait. The second biggest mistake I see Comrades runners make is running hard race after hard race, either to improve their seeding or because they keep just missing their qualifier. Every hard race sets you back. You need physical and mental recovery, and every extra attempt robs you of training time.
Squeaking in at 4:59 also leaves very little room on race day. My Finishers programme targets a marathon under 4:50, which gives you a buffer.
Do not chase seeding
Let me give you an example. Say you run a 4:21 marathon and narrowly miss moving up a seeding batch. The temptation is to try again in a few weeks. But improving from 4:21 to 4:19 will save you, at the very best, 90 seconds on race day. The fitness you lose to recovering from another marathon, and to compromised training in your peak weeks, will cost you 5, 10, even 20 minutes. It makes no sense.
The official race information says 2027 start group seedings will be announced at the start of the year. Entries for 2027 have closed, and the official site says details on withdrawals and substitutions will be shared in due course.
Rule 4: Train for the race, do not race to train
Outside your qualifier, run every race in your build-up within 10 seconds per kilometre of your planned Comrades pace. It will feel very SLOW, and it is HARD to do, but it is the most important skill you can teach yourself for Comrades.
The South African race calendar is built to lead you into Comrades, which is great for practising your fuelling and getting used to water tables. It does take discipline. One of the hardest things to get right on race day is your early pacing, and almost no one has the skill to run easy enough at the start. Racing your training runs only makes that worse.
The same goes for your everyday running. Most of your Comrades training should feel easy, so you recover fully and can absorb the long runs and hills that actually build Comrades fitness. My Finishers programme, set for a 4:50 marathon runner, uses these paces:
| Run type | Pace per km | Pace per mile (approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 7:00-7:36 | 11:16-12:14 |
| Long | 7:10-7:55 | 11:32-12:44 |
| Recovery | 7:36-8:13 | 12:14-13:13 |
Rule 5: How many kilometres a week do you need for Comrades?
Less than most runners fear. From 1 January to race day, a finisher needs roughly 850-1,000km in total, building from about 40km a week in January to 60km a week by April. In running there is a saying: more is always better, until it is not.
| Goal | Total from 1 Jan | Jan-Feb per week | Mar-Apr per week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finish / Vic Clapham (sub 12:00) | 850-1,000km | 40 building to 50km | 50 building to 60km |
| Bronze (sub 11:00) | 900-1,100km | 50 building to 60km | 60 building to 80km |
| Robert Mtshali (sub 10:00) | 1,000-1,200km | 60 building to 70km | 70 building to 85km |
| Bill Rowan (sub 9:00) | 1,000-1,600km | 70 building to 80km | 80 building to 90km |
| Silver (sub 7:30) | 2,000-2,600km | 80 building to 120km | 100 building to 160km |
The Bill Rowan range is wide because it depends so much on your experience and ability. From the second week of May, the taper takes over and you cut back every week.
You will not hit these numbers every week, and you should not try to. Recovery weeks will be lower, and the weeks you run a long race as training will be much bigger. A finisher who runs a training marathon might have an 80-90km week, but the following week should be easier, so the two average out close to the 60km you need for that month.
Experienced runners can do more and will probably improve faster, as long as they stay on the right side of rule 1. If you have more time to train, my answer to “can I run more?” is seldom yes. Add strength training, a swim or a ride instead. You will make better gains from non-impact cross-training without the extra pounding.
Rule 6: No one needs to run more than 50km in training
Your longest training run should be 50km, and most runners only need three marathon-or-longer efforts between January and May. I understand the psychological need for a really long run, but going further puts you at massive risk of injury, compromises your training with fatigue and can leave your best race out on the road.
This is how I help runners avoid the common long-run mistakes:
- Only run a marathon or longer three times between January and May.
- Leave at least three weeks, preferably four, between those efforts.
- Do not go over 50km. The exception is Two Oceans, and if you run it, keep your Comrades long run to 45km.
- Time your 50km by experience: novices six weeks before race day, silver hopefuls four weeks, everyone else five weeks.
- Leave out the crazy events, like the three-in-one marathons run in a single day.
- Multi-day events like the Easter 100 can work well, but I often tell novices to run only two of the three days.
Time on feet, not just distance
In my programmes, I prescribe long runs by time, at a controlled long-run pace. My Finishers programme builds from runs of just over an hour in July to three-hour-plus long runs later in the year. Time-based training lets faster runners progress naturally while protecting slower runners from excessive hours on their feet.
Training your quads for the 2027 down run
On a down run, the descents do the damage. The big 5, Polly Shortts, Inchanga, Botha’s Hill, Fields Hill and Cowies Hill, and their lesser-known companions still have plenty of climbing in them, but it is the long, steep drops like Fields Hill that wreck quads that have not been prepared.
Running downhill loads your quads eccentrically, as the muscle lengthens under load, and unfamiliar eccentric exercise is well known to cause muscle damage and soreness. The good news is that this is trainable. Research reviewed in the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine describes the repeated bout effect: a previous bout of eccentric exercise reduces the damage from a later one, and in studies it protected muscles after a downhill run. That protection can last for weeks to months, which is why downhill practice through your build-up pays off in June.
How to build downhill resilience:
- Include rolling routes in your long runs, and run the descents at controlled long-run effort, not flat out.
- Start with short, gentle descents and progress gradually, the same way you build distance.
- Keep doing hill repeats uphill too. In my Bill Rowan programme, the base phase progresses from 4 to 8 two-minute hill repeats, then to 8-10 one-minute repeats.
- Do your strength work. As I stress in my Finishers programme, the eccentric loading on the downhills makes strength training critical.
Rule 7: Strength training is crucial
Strength training is the number one hack for Comrades runners. If you are a novice, it should be your second biggest priority after the running itself, because it helps you avoid injury, run more efficiently and keep moving well all day.
How much to do through the year:
- January and February: two to three sessions a week
- March and April: two sessions a week
- May: one session a week, to hold on to your strength gains
My Finishers programme puts these sessions on your non-running days, with at least one full day between gym sessions. The best part? You do not need a gym contract. Most of what you need can be done at home with body weight and a few resistance bands.
The research backs it up. A systematic review in Sports Medicine found good evidence that strength training improves running economy and time-trial performance in distance runners, although results were not consistent across every study.
Strong legs are what carry you up the hills and keep you working on the long descents. If you want a ready-made place to start, my free Comrades strength training plan is one session a week, done at home with no expensive gym equipment, and every exercise comes with the reps and a short demo video.
Rule 8: If it hurts, stop
Are you even a runner if you do not run through pain? If you want to make it to the start line, yes. Stop when you feel pain. Missing a day or two here and there is often the difference between losing very little training and losing two or three weeks.
If it hurts, do not go out for a run to “test it”. Rest, ice, compression and elevation (good old R.I.C.E) often turns things around in about 72 hours. If it still hurts after that, get to a physio as soon as you can.
See a doctor or physiotherapist straight away if pain is persistent or getting worse, if you suspect a stress fracture, or if you have chest pain or dizziness while running. Follow those steps and you avoid becoming a 68 percenter.
Rule 9: Walk
Very few people run the whole of Comrades, and I would estimate it is less than 1% of the field. Almost everyone who tries ends up forced into long, unplanned walks, spent and mentally blown. Planned walking is a strategy, not a failure.
Walk breaks help you hold a more consistent pace for longer by giving your legs short rests from the road. They also let you move through refreshment stations calmly, take what you need and eat and drink properly before you set off again.
I like a plan that includes walking for roughly one minute every 3-6km, plus shorter, more regular walks on all the big hills. In my programmes, Finishers runners walk for one minute every 3-6km on long runs, and Bill Rowan runners every 6km. On hills, I switch to run-walk intervals such as one minute running and one minute walking.
Practise this in your long runs and training races. It gets you comfortable with the tactic, and it teaches you to run your long runs easy enough to learn that Comrades “easy” pace for the first 30km.
Rule 10: Know the race
The more you know about the route, the better you can prepare for it. By April, you want to know where the major climbs and descents are, where you need to hold back, and where you can afford to make up time.
On a down run, the first 30km out of Pietermaritzburg have very little downhill in them, and almost no one has the patience to run them slowly enough. After starting with an injury, the second biggest mistake you can make on race day is running that first section too fast. Use a pacing chart matched to your realistic goal and stay disciplined early.
Read the Final Race Instructions carefully when they are released, because they confirm the exact distance, the cut-off points and the finish arrangements for the new finish at the Kings Park precinct in Durban.
Fuelling and hydration for Comrades training
Race-day fuelling is a skill you build in training. Your long runs and training races are where you work out what you can eat and drink at Comrades effort without stomach problems.
Train your gut
Your gut adapts to what you ask of it. A review by Asker Jeukendrup in Sports Medicine found the gastrointestinal system to be highly adaptable, with nutritional training likely to improve carbohydrate absorption and reduce the chance or severity of stomach problems during exercise. In practice, take in carbohydrate on every long run, using the products you plan to use on race day.
How much to take in
The International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand on ultramarathon nutrition recommends:
- Carbohydrate: 30-50g per hour
- Fluid: 450-750ml per hour, roughly 150-250ml every 20 minutes
- Sodium: possibly in higher concentrations than most commercial products provide
Do not overdrink
Drinking too much is more dangerous than mild dehydration. An international consensus statement on exercise-associated hyponatraemia, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, identifies sustained overdrinking as the single most important risk factor and recommends drinking to thirst as the safest individual strategy. Use the ranges above as a guide and let thirst decide the detail.
The Comrades taper
From the second week of May, cut back every week so you arrive in Durban fresh, fit, injury-free and ready for a medal. The taper is where you cash in your training, not where you prove you have done enough.
A meta-analysis published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found the most effective approach was a two-week taper in which training volume is cut by 41-60%, without reducing intensity or frequency. For Comrades, the wind-down starts earlier, because your 50km is five to six weeks out and your long runs shrink from there. Keep one strength session a week through May.
Two common taper mistakes:
- Testing your fitness with one more long run in the final weeks. The fitness is already there.
- Stopping all faster running. Short, controlled efforts keep your legs feeling sharp.
Race week and race day
Race week is about protecting what you have built: light running, plenty of sleep, familiar food and a race plan you have rehearsed. Nothing new on race day.
For practical help on race day, read my guide to pacing the perfect Comrades race.
Recovering after Comrades
Recovery after Comrades takes longer than most runners expect. My guidance is two weeks with no running, light cross-training such as swimming or cycling in week three, and short, easy 20-30 minute jogs in week four before structured training starts again.
Sleep, good food and patience matter more than any recovery gadget. My guide to post-Comrades recovery covers the full plan.
Comrades training FAQs
How many months do you need to train for Comrades?
If you already run marathons comfortably, about five months of Comrades training from January is enough, built on a solid base from the second half of the year before. Newer runners should allow closer to a year. My official 2027 programmes begin in July 2026.
What marathon time do you need to run Comrades?
The qualifying standard for 2027 is a marathon in 4:59:59 or faster, submitted by 3 May 2027. To finish inside 12 hours with some margin, my Finishers programme targets a marathon under 4:50.
Can a beginner run Comrades?
Yes, if you give yourself enough time, qualify through an official race and follow a plan that matches your current ability. My Finishers programme exists for exactly this group, with walk breaks and time-based long runs designed to get first-timers to the finish healthy.
Get the right Comrades plan for you
Comrades is a race like no other, and one you will never forget. It is a big commitment, and it makes me sad when I see people miss out on what Comrades has to offer because they got sucked into crazy training. Build these 10 rules into your 2027 Comrades training plan and you will toe the line on 13 June ready to earn your medal.
I have coached Comrades runners from first-time finishers to the front of the field, and my Comrades Marathon Roadmap gives you a structured build-up matched to your goal, from base training through to race day.
Good luck. May you have shade on your face and the wind at your back, and I look forward to seeing you in Durban with a medal round your neck and a smile wrapped around your face.
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