Longer term plans - A Comrades 89km 'marathon' in South Africa 2013?

Been day dreaming a bit. I have medium to long term plans:

- Do Melbourne Marathon October 9 2011, aiming for 3hr10
- Do Gold Coast 2012, possibly 3hr goal - Yes I am a bit ambitious
- Do an overseas Marathon - possibly Chicago or New York, October or November 2012. No goal as yet. Maybe settle in and enjoy it ..
- Begin training for Comrades June 2013

Comrades in case you have not heard is a world famous ultra marathon. I am constantly at odds with it being called a marathon, as I associate the Olympic distance of 42.195 as the Marathon distance. Anything shorter or longer aint a 'Marathon' :) Anyway the Comrades is about 89km's is a whole day event, and alternates 'uphill' and 'downhill' every year. 2013 its an uphill.

It runs from Durban to Pietermaritzburg in uphill years, and Pietermaritzburg to Durban in downhill years. Apparently the downhill can be tougher, as there is a higher proportion of down to up. And uphill has its own rewards being mostly up, but still a large proportion down.

In either form, its imperative to get a lot of hill running done in training. ie Find the biggest hill you can, and go up and down it for 8 hours :) ( Coolrunning forum member Geofa suggested this..)

The race is extreemely tough, and requires different training to a Marathon obviously. So, after October or November 2012, I may well be doing ultra marathon training distances, racking up higher mileage per week than ever before, and mostly on hills, up and down.

I hope that getting a few 'good' marathons done, as well as another year or so of good training will help me prepare for the training needed for such an even.