Training For The Track
The Six Foot Track Marathon is a tough event - no doubt about it. That's why there is an entry criteria - you need to have run a sub 4-hour marathon, or provide evidence of an equivalent standard before you can take part. Because, if you can only run a 4hr marathon, you will run about 6 hours in the race. The reason for such slow times is that there are some big hills, and they occur between 16km and 30km in the race. Very big hills. The typical training program will see you preparing as you would for a "standard" road marathon, with some additional hill work. The emphasis being on being able to a long way, or for a long time, in comfort.
Unofficial Training Runs
There will be some Unofficial training runs in the Sydney region. There are numerous benefots for these : returning Six Footers can dust off their shoes and get in some good training, newbie Sydney-area trail runners can get to run on some great trails with a great bunch of people and rub shoulders with some Six Foot "old hands", and Six Foot "virgins" unable to make the official entry criteria will get a very last opportunity to show some form.
- Run 1 - Otford to Bundeena 28km, Sat 6-Dec-2008 [website]
- Run 2 - Beyond the Black Stump 33km, Tues 1-Jan-2009 [website]
- Run 3 - Megalong Mega 36km, Sun 1-Feb-2009 [website]
Joining a Club Program
- Northside Running Group offers an organised training program specifically for the Six Foot Track Marathon. Currently over 400 successful finishers have run with that program over the years and trained under the club's qualified coaches. Contact: enquiries@nrg.asn.au for further info.
- The Sydney Striders have a Six Foot Training group that run each Saturday morning however you will need to join the club first.
Do It Yourself Training
- A Training program provided by Susan Griffith from Paceline Coaching & Training is available for download here as an Adobe-Acrobat file : Training Plan [76kb]
. Susan has successfully coached over 300 people to run the Six Foot Track and is a veteran of the track having completed the event 9 times. - Some more free-form training advice is available from the CoolRunning Six Foot Track discussions (some useful points, some not).
Medical Advice for enjoying the Six Foot Track!
The race's medical supervisor, Dr Jonathan King has put together some of his thoughts on how to appraoch Six Foot and make suggestions on looking after yourself.
