Hamlett credits Fordyce for turning the Ultimate Human Race into a science

JOHANNESBURG: “I cannot put in what God left out.”

John Hamlett, his cute Yorkshire Terrier on his lap, is talking about what it takes to be a Comrades Marathon champion.

The TomTom Athletics Club coach is renowned as a “Comrades Kingmaker” having trained no less than four winners of The Ultimate Human Race. And he says that adding a fifth in this year’s edition is a “when” and not an “if”. Such is his confidence in his work and the athletes he works with.

“There’s really no clear competition for us this year,” Hamlett, pictured, says “Maybe Teboho Sello. But I really believe we will win it again this year after we won the last two.

“Any of Gift (Kelehe, the defending up run champion) or David (Gatebe last year’s record-breaking winner) can break the up run record. As it was, we were hoping for a one-two last year, but Gift had an injury. This year we have a team good enough to dominate the top five.”

And he should know what good enough is, Hamlett having not only ran Comrades in the past himself but having specialised in training runners for local road running’s holy grail for many years.

“To win the Comrades you need to be a disciplined and committed athlete. Of course it’s key that there’s an essence of talent there, after all I cannot put in what God left out can I?” he laughs, startling the Yorkie – named Ruab – to wake up and leave his lap.

“Talent though, is but a small percentage of it all. There is so much that goes into making a Comrades champion, and it takes time. A long time.”

It took him 10 years to get Kelehe to win the Comrades, Hamlett says. And even then, the man from Mafikeng had been running for nearly all his life.

“Gift and his brother Andrew (2001 Comrades champion) used to run to school. So running is a natural effort for them and so working with such people makes it a little easier. You can’t have a guy who is being forced to run and think you can make a Comrades champion out of him,” Hamlett said.

Proper training, the right nutrition and psychological strength play a major role too.

“It is not a one size fits all, as some people seem to think. Training for instance, has to be individual specific and you can only know what to do for each athlete from having spent years and years working with them,” he says.

Hamlett says it was Bruce Fordyce who turned the Comrades into a science.

“In the past people just used to run Comrades. It was an amateur undertaking. But Bruce focused solely on Comrades, he made it a science and brought professionalism into it,” Hamlett says.

It is for this reason that the top athletes essentially live for the big race, running the other races as a build-up for the KwaZuluNatal ultra.

The TomTom team will be going to Durban today, having been in camp for eight weeks running distances of 250km to 270km a week. When they tapered towards the end of their camp, Hamlett’s athletes were doing about 200km a week.

That they chose Dullstroom, he says, is because “at an altitude of about 2 000m, it is an ideal place to train. I’ve heard people ask why we don’t go to Lesotho, but Lesotho is too high and too steep.

“The isolation is also very good for the athletes to be focused on the job. We don’t just allow people in the camp, no visitors who can contaminate our food. We’re that careful.” Having done their best in the build-up, what happens on race day is of utmost importance.

“Because I know each of my athletes, we manage each one’s needs on race day individually. From preparing their drinks and knowing when to give each one their own. That’s very important on the day because it doesn’t help to have a Ferrrari that is tuned and then have no petrol, does it,” Hamlett says.

The psychological aspect of the race is also very important.

“We watch a lot of Comrades movies and we discuss tactics from them. So when they go into a race, my athletes usually know things such as when to break from a group or a competition. Honesty is key and they know they can share whatever they are feeling with me. But I also know them and while David, for example, is a quiet man I am able to tell when he has something on his mind,” Hamlett says.