In Western Australia there are a number of iconic events in the West Australian Marathon Club calendar that attract a large field of the states best runners. ( http://www.wamc.org.au ) Tomorrow is one of them, the bridges 10k. (There is a 5k but c’mon, when there’s a 10k option the 5k really is just an appetiser, and not a very good one at that, maybe a pumpkin soup compared to the Surf ‘n’ turf main course.) The bridges, and the name suggest runs alongside the Swan River in Perth and crosses the river twice via two bridges, giving you a point to point loop course. Flat the whole way bar the rise on the Narrows Bridge it is built for a good time and a run that I run probably 20-30 times a year minimum.
Last year, as this year probably, my main objective is not to get ‘chicked’ (beaten by a woman) as Linda Spencer, a Zatopek runner in her time, runs this race and at her best will beat me hands down. Last year I ran with Linda for the first two kilometres at a pace far faster than I wanted to go but luckily she dropped off and I managed to sneak in before her. We’ll see what transpires this year ? Truth be told there are a number of women runners in Perth who are making great improvements under various coaches and my days of finishing ahead of them are numbered. As always I will go down fighting and, while I still can, keep them honest.
A 10k is a good indicator race before a marathon which I happen to be running next week. I go by the ‘mile a day to recover’ rule and being the 10k is about 6 miles I should be recovered by next Sunday for the Bunbury Marathon. ( http://bunburyrunnersclub.org/3-waters-marathon/ ) I certainly need to be at my best as this marathon destroyed me in 2014 and put me in a running slump that lasted well over a year. This was in stark contrast to the previous year when I won the event. (My one and only marathon victory and one I will cherish to the end….) My plans for Bunbury will be to initially try and keep my average sub 4min/k and finish sub 2hrs 48mins but if the conditions are ideal I may be persuaded, on the day. to go a tad quicker. It is really a starter race to the main course ,which is Perth in June this year. Bunbury is known for bad conditions ranging from winds to heat to humidity, the three things all marathon runners try to avoid. I’ll talk more on ‘bunners’ in a post later in the week as I move in taper mode, this will at least give me more time to spend blogging.
Right back to the Bridges 10k. I’ve said on just about every time I’ve ran t’his 10k will be my last’. It is a race that can put you in the pain box early if you go out too fast and unlike a half or a marathon doesn’t really give you enough time to work into it. A 5k is all about speed and worst case scenario you’re only go to blow up with maximum 3k to go (and that take’s some doing to blow so early !!) , in the 10k if things goes awry early you can be looking at a true 5k pain train and believe me 5k is a long way when you have nothing left in the tank. It also asks some serious questions at around the 6-8k mark and you need to dig deep to answer these before finding that finishing burst for the last kilometre. (Why doesn’t that ‘burst’ happen at 5k ? All down to the central governor I suppose?) So many people ran a 10k at 5k pace, which is find for 5k of course but then they wonder why the wheels have fallen off and there’s still 5k to go.? Funny that.
So how do you run a 10k successfully ? I think the best advice is to run a lot of them, like all things practice makes perfect. Last year I think I ran five 10k races with each one easier (relatively speaking.) than the last. I even managed a couple of sub 35 minute efforts, which was always the dream, so was happy to tick that one off. My advice would be to start at slower than your 5k pace and then build into it and finish strong. How easy was that to type? I am actually smiling to myself while typing this because I know tomorrow when the guns goes off I’ll be sprinting with the leaders for the first kilometre and regretting it at the second, while they continue on their merry way and smash 32 minutes, making it look easy, bless ’em. Meanwhile I’ll be staggering to 5k and opening the ‘5k to go pain box’, jump in, assume the foetal position and close the door behind me.
Tomorrow will also be , probably, the last outing for my weapon of choice lately, the Adidas Takumi Sen 3 racing shoe. These bad boys have got me through three marathons, numerous half marathons, 10k’s and a load of park runs. Over 400km currently (thankyou http://www.strava.com ) but they are now well past their sell by date. The shoe is expensive (and if anybody finds them on special please email me!) but like all things in life you get what you pay for and these are worth 2-3 minutes over a marathon compared to the normal training shoes like the Asics Kayano. (I consider the Kayano more of a boot than a running shoe truth be told. I use to wear these shoes believing all the marketing hype about protecting your foot with their magic gel, about a kilogram of the stuff ! and raising the heel so much you’re virtually tipping over. Not for me people but as with all things running it is personal and this shoe may be right for you but I’m a less is more , when it comes to runners and wear those bad boys down to the bitter end before changing. We were built to run without shoes so, to me , all the shoe does is protesct you from the nasty objects on the concrete. )
Weapons of mass destruction.
Right that’s if for Saturday, I’ll be back tomorrow and post the race details ,which will of course involve lots of questioning myself, time in the pain box and maybe even me getting chicked. Wouldn’t have it any other way…. as you were.
We all run for different reasons. Personally I live for the thrill of the race, trying to go faster than you’ve ever gone before. This can be from any distance from 4k to 100k. I’ve raced them all and each one presents its own challenges but the blue ribbon event will always be the marathon. The marathon is short enough to allow you to race and set an expectation that is achievable , give or take a minute or two, but long enough to test yourself. Anything longer than a marathon and the margin for error increases significantly as other factors come into play, conditions on the day, hydration and nutrition strategies and just general ability to complete the distance due to the extra time required. Shorter races, although testing , don’t put you in the ‘ dead zone’ from 32k to the finish of a marathon, here wondrous things can happen. Alternatively this final 10k is where you are exceeding what your body is built to do without outside assistance, by outside assistance I mean extra nutrition, extra training and a string mental attitude. Similar to the last few hundred metres of ascent on Everest in the final 10k of a marathon you are somewhere you shouldn’t be.
It is from 32k onwards that you will see glimpses of the real ‘you’, who you really are, stripped back to the bare primeval goal of finishing something. In that last 10k there is no tax worries, family troubles, job insecurities, hell you even stop worrying about what Donald Trump is going to ‘tweet’ next, the only thing that matters is getting to the end of the race. As I have said many time if you look on the Strava mobile app you’ll see the first 32k of a marathon runners pace chart and be able to draw a straight line down the side of the pace bars; all within 10-15 seconds of the previous one. At 32k instantly that pace bar begins to lengthen and this will continue for the next 10k normally as the runner struggles with themselves as fatigue sets in and , trying to protect the body, puts on the brakes. I’ve mentioned many times this central governor , as Tin Noakes describes it in the ‘Lore of Running’, is only trying to protect you from doing more damage to yourself and apparently it can be tricked into either not coming on at all (probably by Kenyans only?) or maybe not as aggressively. This is the mental part of finishing a marathon, worth a good 5-10 minutes over the last 10k minimum. This ‘central governor’ is not present in shorter distances, what holds you back then is good old fashioned lack of either training, fitness or talent. All of these can be improved on, to some extent, but unfortunately the talent issue is probably genetic in most people, this does not mean we can’t chase our own personal PB times, whatever they turn out to be.
So back to the marathon, while running this evening I thought of all the ways you can improve your marathon time without actually running. There are quite a few which are largely ignored by the running population. So here they are :-
Weight. Lose as much as possible as the lighter you are the quicker you will run. This is common sense but ignored by so many runners, even in my close knit circle of running friends there’s a few who may ‘over-indulge’ on a regular basis. They shall remain nameless but know who they are….. The old adage of ‘I run a lot so can eat what I want’ unfortunately does not ring true. A good runner is always hungry because they don’t eat enough, thus they lose weight and get to their ‘racing weight’ which is always lighter than you can normally survive on. This is why it’s a racing weight, to be achieved before a race and then ignored until the next one. Be careful not to ignore it too much of course as it makes the next time you try to get down to it more challenging.
Racing Shoes. The number of Asics Kayano’s I see at the start of a marathon is criminal. These bad boys are like wearing concrete boots. Ok for long distance training (I suppose) but not for racing marathons. Get yourself a good pair of racing shows. I’d recommend the Nike Lunaracer (assuming you can find any) as they were the perfect combination of protection and lightness. My choice lately is the Adidas Takumi Sen 3, beware though these really are racing flats and you need to be light on your feet,and generally light all over, to get the benefit of these. If you can’t wear racing flats then any racing shoe lighter than your normal training shoe will give you a boost, a turbo charger without doing anything more than buying a pair of shoes, too easy.
Carboloading and tapering. C’mon, eating more pancakes and muffins for 3 days before a marathon and running less for two weeks before. How good is marathon training ? Seriously though a good 3 days of carboloading is an enjoyable experience and although you may feel bloated this is mainly due to the extra hydration and overall this will help when you are in the last 10k, the most important part of any marathon. Search on google for ‘best carboloading diets’ and you’ll get the idea of what to eat. I normally work on 10g of carbohydrates for every kilogram of weight a day , for three days before the race. So for me, at 69kg, I aim to eat 690g of carbohydrates a day for three days. Which is actually quite hard to do.
Pacing the race. Set yourself an achievable goal, either through past experience or from the may indicator tables available on the internet which can turn your 5k/10k or half time into a marathon prediction. Probably best to at least try and use a half marathon time as using a 5k or 10k time leaves yourself open to wild swings of finishing times and can be fatal if you go out too fast, it’ll make the last 10k even more interesting if the wheels have fallen of the wagon. The Macmillan calculator is pretty good ( https://www.mcmillanrunning.com ) Get the pace right and the whole experience is so much more pleasant.
Race hydration and nutrition. Another ignored ,but so important, part of the marathon is by getting the hydration and nutrition plan right. Do a good job and the 32k ‘wall’ can be pushed back past the finish distance. Matt Fitzgerald (In Matt we trust!) has written a good book on this. (https://mattfitzgerald.org/books/ ) He’s written good books on most running subjects and I recommend you read them all. There maybe should be a Matt Fitzgerald paragraph for this blog. Reading his books will help your marathon time, without running, by putting his teaching into your daily routine.
Get a coach. This may or may not involve more running but from the angle of working smarter compared to working harder a coach will help your marathon time without more running.
This list is by no means exhaustive and due to time constraints, i.e. it’s late and I’m up early tomorrow for a 14k progressive run with the boys, I’m going to cut this post short. Maybe I’ll do a part two later in the week…. until then remember you don’t always have to run more to go quicker. (Though you can of course if you want to, speaking from experience but that’s a post for another day….)
Time is getting away from me lately. My twice daily posts have morphed into daily and now weekly posts. Life is getting in the way it seems. Although this may have affected my ability to get to the keyboard you’ll be glad to hear I’m still putting in the kilometres, some things really are sacred. After Darlington half last weekend I managed to drag myself out for a recovery run in the evening, after first posting about the race of course, priorities.
The recovery run on the same day as the event is normally an exercise in pain management and this one was no different. I struggled, and I mean struggled, to hold anywhere near 5min/k average and my right ‘hammy’ , which is as fickle as a Donald Trump voter, was threatening to let go the whole way. Luckily it survived long enough to get me home and immerse myself in deep heat. (Much to the kids disgust of course, some people just don’t appreciate the soothing smell of Deep Heat at the dinner table, these non-runners are a funny bunch?) The next day was no better with recovery run #2 at lunchtime, much to the amusement of Jon and Mike who recover a lot better than me obviously. Both of them look forward to the recovery run after a race as they both save something so they can tease me with a pace just outside what I can achieve before slowing down to let me catch up, before repeating the process. Got to love running humour ? This lack of pace continued until the Thursday morning progressive where I managed to salvage some pride with a half decent hit out before a similar run in the afternoon. On the second run I actually nailed a perfect 10k progressive for the first time in months. I’m blaming the company I keep on the Thursday morning run where we get to sub 4 pace far too early in the 14k distance leaving you nowhere to go at 10k but slower; well for me anyhow. It then stops being a progressive and turns into a 5k tempo. (I’ve written a few posts on progressive runs and their benefits, if you search on the word ‘progressive’ you should get access to them.)
After Thursday my confidence was restored and even ran a good double up on Friday to prepare me for my first Park Run of the year. I have certainly advocated the park run on this blog many times and I firmly believe this is a must-have for all wanna-be runners of all distance. The 5k is long enough it will test you (and bite you in the backside if you go out too quick!) but not long enough that you can’t race it and still put in a good training week.
On Saturday I wasn’t expecting to much but with the help of my mate Andy went off like a rocket and managed a 3:09min/k first kilometre (when will I learn?). I did manage to hold 3:20min/k for the next 2k but let myself down a bit on kilometre four with a 3:29. I kicked for home and registered a 3:20 but the damage was done in kilometre four and I missed a PB by 8 seconds. No problem, I wasn’t expecting one and I felt good for the duration. A bonus was grabbing the Carine 50-55 age group record (from Andy funnily enough, remember him at the start!) to go with my 45-50 age group record. Also managed a top 10 finish nationally among all the ‘age grade’ champions for the park run courses. When you get to 50 it’s all about age grades and groups. (Sorry Mark Lee but it’s all us old timers have left to chase, quality twenty year old runners are now something we read about, not catch!)
Carine Park Run, first lap. Holding on to a slender lead….
Sunday came and luckily we had decided in the week to go with the Mark Conway plan (which Mike is copying , you didn’t hear that here.) and run a 20k easy, for no other reason than we were all a tad jaded after Darlington and fancied a shorter-long run. Due to family commitments I couldn’t start until 6:30am so we all decided to meet at Yelo at that time and either start from there or at least meet the rest of us and continue (if you needed a few extra kilometres.) My 9 year old Daughter did find this amusing as the main reason for this delayed start was her and here were 10 runners changing their lives because of her. We’re a funny lot runners, but accommodating, thanks lads.
So off on the short 20k run we went, ten of us started which normally calls for road closures in Western Australia. (We did pass Mark Lee running in the opposite direction dressed like a Christmas Tree which amused the group greatly ..?) Ten is a good number because it takes about 10k before you actually run out of the ‘initial banter’, this can be stories from the week regarding anything the group would find of interest. Truth be told there are a few subjects which are mandatory of course. Jon’s height and weight are also discussed early as well as Mike’s VO2 max score, add in Mark C’s training plan from Matt Fitzgerald and you’re good for 5k minimum. We then discuss politics for at least 2-3k but lately because of Donald Trump this has started to last a bit longer and normally involves a lot more laughter than previously. (American voters, c’mon, it is a joke isn’t it…?) My training plans are then fair game and also discussions about possible posts. Add in a few Phil quotes and before you know it you’re turning around for the run home.
This of course is when the real running happens. The outward journey is social, we’ve generally not met since the previous Sunday so we have a lot to catch up on. I mean as runners we live very full lives. We sleep, worry about our weight, distance, ‘niggles’, pace, alcohol intake (well my group for some reason doesn’t seem to be too worried ?) and then, well that’s about it really but all of this needs to be discussed at great length. Add in potential races and I’m surprised we have time for anything else bar eating muffins, pancakes and drinking coffee.
So back to the journey home. I must admit without the T-train lately (he’s still injured from the ADU 100K in January.) the last 5-10k has been a tad pedestrian. Tony would always push the finish and we often found ourselves at 5k tempo pace at the end of a long run. Luckily this is considered one of your ‘go to runs’ (a long run, fast finish) but I always felt the T-train just enjoyed putting us all through then ‘ringer’ at the end of a 30k, lovely guy Tone. (maybe we don’t miss him?….) Today was no different and I up’d the pace and split the group as we all moved towards Yelo and the final goal, a berry and white chocolate muffin and coffee combo. (see below!)
The holy grail of running…Yeo muffin and coffee combo.
Being it was only 20k the end came around sooner rather than later and we all continued the conversations we had started 90 minutes previously outside Yelo, The topic of conversation didn’t really change much, (and never does truth be told but that’s the point isn’t it?) Jon’s weight and Mike’s VO2 score were discussed and Phil came out with some more gems which funnily enough were mostly already on the internet. This brings me to the reason behind the post. (Finally I hear you all shout !) … The Sunday long run is more the one time when you can let your hair down (excuse the pun in my case!) and just run with good friends who love the same things you love and then at the end celebrate the whole ‘running thing‘ over good coffee and ‘tukka’. If it does you good as well then that’s a bonus but it’s not the real reason we all run long on Sunday, there’s something far more important , running with your mates. (It is also important to know Mike’s VO2 score and Jon’s current weight battles but that’s secondary, I think?)
The boys, Mark L., Mike, Phil, Al, Jon and me, Mark C. and Zac.
This weekend I ran one of my favourites half marathons, the Darlington half. Favourite for a number of reasons but the main one being the finish. The first half is 11k uphill initially and, being a point to point , there is a 10k downhill for the return. (For the more intelligent amongst you there is a small loop section which explains why its not a 50/50 split between up and down.) So if you get to the turn around with something left in the tank the final 10k is normally the quickest. It really is built for the holy grail of running , the negative split, often talked about but rarely achieved. At Darlington to positive split is actually harder than a negative split with gravity as your co-pilot you are normally caressed home. This year we even had a head wind up the hill to make sure it was negative splits all around !
Darlington half start, maybe the return to the pack can be put off for another year or two ?
So back to the race. We drove to the start in Jon’s new BMW and this certainly set the tone for a fast start. Jon is certainly a young man on a mission behind the wheel of a weapon of mass destruction that is his 330d . Please note I do not advocate speeding but if you do indulge it might as well be in a German sports car. So to the start line. The Darlington half starts downhill for the first 100 or so metres and then it’s 11k up, in different degrees of ‘hard’; i.e. hard, very hard, very very hard and this is surely classed as a wall hard !! As always I started way to fast and found myself sitting in 4th place after the first kilometre with another runner who I knew. We settled into the hill climbing part of the half and a stiff headwind, which meant we took turns at the front. Truth be told I think Chris took more time at the front than me but I played the ‘I’m 50 and so, being older, am entitled to sit behind you longer’ card. I’m not sure if this is proper running etiquette but in my mind it worked and I was more than happy to take it a read this was the way. Darlington is always a struggle initially as you race up a 10k hill. You feel you should be running faster than you actually are (according to your Garmin or GPS watch. Sometimes technology can be a curse!) but know you need to save something for the return journey. There is more ‘pacing‘ involved with Darlington as the race really is two different races in one; one a 10k slog uphill and then a ‘run as fast as you can without falling over‘ return 10k. The 1k in between these two races is flat and serves as a divide between the two seperate terrains.
Myself and Chris ran past the half-way cone (well I think it’s about 11k?) together and then started on the 1k in-between flat part of the course, pre-downhill. This also gives you an opportunity to see who is behind you without looking around (as we all know a cardinal sin in racing is looking behind you, never, never do this !) I noted that there was a group of 3-4 runners who were closer than I would have liked and all would be gunning for me on the downhill section, joy, just what you need when you’re knackered and still have 10k to run. (albeit downhill) I up’d the pace in a desperate attempt to put some distance between me and the chasing pack and started on the downhill section with a ‘spring in my step‘ as gravity and the tail wind combined to push me forward. The next 5-6k’s were eventful only in my continued effort to pull back 3rd place, a young man I could see was slightly slowing giving me renewed hope of a top 3 finish. (My best Darlington finish was 5th in 2014 and this becomes important with 2k to go…)
Unfortunately the faster I ran I was still unable to bridge the gap to 3rd and about 18k into the race I resigned myself to a 4th place finish as Chris had dropped off a tad, probably a by product of dragging a 50 year old up the hill earlier. This was going to come back and bite me as, at 19k, I heard footsteps behind me and my friend Luke went past after checking all was good. Luke, being probably 25 years younger than me , was cruising home and had left his dash for the line as late as possible. I moved back to 5th place, which given the race so far, I would have been happy with. Alas, not to be, another runner probably half my age (and then some) went past me with less than 1k to go and down to 6th I tumbled. All in all a 1:19:16 and 6th place was a reasonable hit out for the day. it was my second fastest finishing time on my 6th Darlington half.
What did I learn from the race ? Yet again I struggled at the 5-10k part of the race and felt better for the second half. Not sure if this was gravity and tail wind assisted but it was certainly less painful than the 16k race a few weeks earlier. I still feel I am struggling a bit with my form at the moment but I’m managing to hang on to some respectable times. I have 3 weeks to my next race which is a 10k so this will give me some focus to concentrate on shorter, faster training runs and maybe drop the odd double day; what will I do with all my free time I wonder ?
On a side note Darlington was also witness to a World Record as young Tom Alexander ran 1:24:22. You may wonder why it was a World Record, well Tom is 10 years old. ! He beat the current World Record by nearly a minute running a notoriously slow course . I personally reckon it is at least 2 minutes slower than a flat course, thus young Tom has it in him, on a flat course, to probably put 3 minutes on the 10 year old WR . Now that is impressive. As well as worried about being ‘chicked’ I know need to worry about being beaten by a 10 year old, life as a runner can be a stressful one.
Negative split guaranteed, what a course.
So it was back with the boys this afternoon on the 10k recovery. Mike and Jon enjoy this run as they seem to recover better than me. I struggle to keep up with them as they discuss the race and I hang off the back cursing getting old and recovering like a 90 year old. I personally put this down to leaving very little in the tank after a race where as I sometimes think Jon enjoys the social side of racing a bit too much. Mike was chastising him for striking up conversations with strangers while racing and must admit this is not something I have ever down myself. Give Jon his due he did finish like Usain Bolt but I feel this had more to do with the free breakfast , including muffins, rather than the finishing time. Priorities Jon, priorities !! Once we dragged Jon away from the free breakfast it was back to his BMW and his best Lewis Hamilton impression on the way home. I did feel sorry for Mike in the back trying to eat his croissants and fruit as we went round corners faster that the space shuttle reentering orbit ! Oh well, that’s racing……
My favourite part of any race, the finishing straight ! Mission accomplished , 6th place finish and time not too shabby…
I have been quiet the last couple of weeks as I digest the findings from my last WAMC (West Australian Marathon Club) race where I worked very hard for a podium finish. The race itself was harder than expected and although I was happy with the end result it has certainly left me ‘scarred’, and this explains the lack of posts.
As runners we all run for different reasons, some for health, some wellness, some to escape life and others to embrace life. For me it has always been about racing myself and trying to better my best time, always looking to be my best or even beat my best. Over the years I have been very successful at this and ran many PB’s . This though has come at a cost and truth be told it has always been one I have been more than willing to pay. Each year I have increased my weekly distance and still ran the hard sessions when needed. It was always worth the extra effort as the PB’s kept coming and I even started to grab some podium spots as I hit my late forties. I had successfully moved from the middle of the pack to the front and this is an addiction that is stronger than any illegal drug. (Please note I assuming this to be true as being a dedicated runner my only vice is pancakes and muffins !.) Last year was perhaps my best ever as I left the forties and moved into my fifties. Admittedly I put in more distance than ever before and also changed my diet but the results came and they were better than I ever could have imagined.
Thus 2017 I started off on the same foot (excuse the pun) and kept up the double days and hard sessions assuming this PB trajectory would continue. The first hint of trouble was a 5k race at the beginning of the year where I ran over 17 minutes for the first time in a year. I put this down to the conditions and a tough training week pre-race. Looking at my training log I had ran the same race 3 years ago and go the same time so it wasn’t a complete disaster, or was it? Next was the ADU 100K, my first 100k ultra. This was a complete success with a 2nd place finish and a strong race throughout. The video was even good documenting the experience, thanks to Rob’s talent rather the subject. Next came a 16k race that I had run twice previously (for two 2nd place finishes.). This race was going to be the tester for the season and I was expecting to do well and try and break my 59:59:07 time from last year. The race report can be read here :-
This race has made me question my training and I am certainly more worried about what the future holds rather than usual excited anticipation you experience at the start of a racing season. With the Darlington half this weekend I need to make sure I work on my mindset as currently I am not in the right frame of mind to ‘attack’ the course and I feel similar to the last time I ran Darlington in 2014 where I was a few minutes slower than planned. This doesn’t sound a lot but when you race as much as me a few minutes is a lifetime and I certainly spent some serious time reflecting on that 120 seconds slippage! All of a sudden runners who I would normally never see where chasing me in the closing stages and when I finished there was a procession of runners behind me, far too close for my liking; I was being dragged back to the pack.
I understand that at fifty my time at the pointy-end of the race is limited and truth be told I was actually looking forward to moving back to the pack and relaxing my arduous training load but as I mentioned before being near the front is addictive and it’s not something I am willing to give up without a fight. I need my fix of ‘success’ and last year was a good year where I over dosed on medals. I’m just not ready to go back to the pack just yet but maybe I don’t have a choice?
Point Walter was hard in many ways but what was hardest to digest was the feeling that maybe I have ‘shot my bolt’ and the downward spiral of finishing times is over. I had the same feeling in 2014, after a particularly good previous year, and was prepared for the return to the pack. Last year though I reignited my PB streak but now I feel I am again facing the prospect of slowing down. Am I ready for this, no, can I do anything about it, I’m not sure and this is the problem. I have mentioned many times the mental part of running is so important and I need to ‘toughen up’ my approach as this took quite a hit after my last race.
So we’ll see what Darlington has to offer and I am hopeful I can put in a good performance, rather than excited about chasing faster times. Even typing this I feel it is an admittance of the first stage of accepting moving back to the pack and this may be a necessary journey because if the effort required to stand still is so great it becomes undoable you would soon lose your love of racing and then for me running, as the two for me are joined. I had already resigned myself for this journey in 2014 and last year was a bonus which was unexpected , albeit hard work to achieve. Is this my second attempt at accepting my times are now set in stone and no longer beatable, we’ll see, maybe as soon as this weekend at the Darlington half?
Darlington half start, maybe the return to the pack can be put off for another year or two ?
As you can see from the photograph above I did manage to keep ahead of the pace at Darlington and although I dropped a few places from my start sprint I still managed a top 10 finish so maybe I can keep myself ahead of the pack for another year or two? It’ll be fun trying……
After the weekend racing I certainly felt every year of my fifty on this planet. Monday and Tuesday were spent trying very hard to keep up with my training buddies and I was dropped on a few occasions even on our ‘easy to Matilda Bay and back‘ lunchtime 10k. The race itself was brutal and I needed the full 48 hours after a 10k to recover. Things improved Wednesday and come Thursday I was ready for another 14k progressive with the lads with the obligatory post run muffin and coffee at Yelo. Surprisingly the 14k progressive went better than planned and I managed to pull a PB out of the hat which was a pleasant surprise, albeit I worked for it. Of course with Strava I was able to investigate my previous runs and even print out the history of the run. In the image below you can see the gradual increase in average pace, bar one (9th February) where we decided to make a big effort to run a perfect progressive and this start slower to give us some leeway at the pointy end of the session. (I actually missed a perfect progressive by a few seconds on one of the last kilometres if I remember correctly? Still to hit a perfect 14k progressive.)
14k Progressive run , with a muffin incentive.
These sorts of graphics give you the little push you can sometimes need as you start another week of training. Marathon training is hard work and also hard work on a weekly basis, it doesn’t just end after a few weeks. Every Sunday you struggle to hit the weekly target and then Monday is all starts again and you’re back behind the eight ball. Add in progressively hard sessions and towards the end of a marathon training session you can feel absolutely finished. Luckily you have a few weeks tapering and then 3 days carbo-loading before the big event. These two activities certainly help at the end of a marathon plan.
So back to indicator sessions and races. I can see from my progressive run finish times over the last few months I am making an improvement. This sort of information helps spur you on as you move towards your ultimate goal. A glimmer of light in the dark tunnel of marathon training. I mentioned in a earlier post marathon training ‘is a slog‘, natural talent plays a part but good old fashioned hard work can make as much of a difference, this allows runners like myself, who are prepared to put in an extra few kilometres, gain an advantage or at least level the playing field.
As I have mentioned many times, and it’s even one of my golden rules, you need to document everything and Strava (http://www.strava.com ) or even Training Peaks , ( https://www.trainingpeaks.com ) these need to be your weapons of choice. As you move along your marathon plan you see improvement in the pace and/or distance of sessions, this gives you the push you need to get to Sunday, add up your kilometres (or look at Strava as the days of adding up left us when Bill Gates invented Excel of course. Thanks Bill.) and then start thinking about Monday morning and starting at zero again. Constantly look for improvements as you work towards the marathon, these will also give you the mental strength you will need in the race, ‘trust in your training’ is one of my favourite running mantras and these small victories help to reinforce this. Keep looking for these improvements , they do make a difference.
Right, Sunday almost finished, another 10k maybe and then it’s time to reset my weekly totals back to zero and back behind the eight ball I scuttle ready for another week of running, wouldn’t have it any other way really, I mean, what else is there ?
This morning I lined up for the West Australian Marathon Club ( http://www.wamc.org.au ) Point Walter 16k (10Miles), my first race as a fifty year old. I’d ran this race twice in the last three years and managed a second place finish both times (58:24 and 59:59:07 , that 07 is important as the club (and Strava) rounded it up to an hour dead !, the first time was a PB and is important for later in this post…) I had a mini taper for this one as I was determined to go faster than the 59:59:07 I ran last year and the Race Director and Club President both knew I was out to set the record straight.
So to the start, I turned up and saw my friend and training partner Ross warming up in the car park and this threw me a bit as he had earlier commented he’d be running with the lads and Ross is on fire at the moment, winning his last two events. Mentally this was a blow as I was hoping to cruise to a podium, truth be told , and seeing Ross I knew I was probably now one place down. Speaking to Ross at the start and it seemed another ‘gun runner’ was doing the 16k (there is a 5k option as well) so I moved myself one more place down the finishing list. I was now, probably best case, gunning for 3rd. Next thing alongside me my friend Zac turns up after running a 1hr15mins half the previous week (a 5 minute PB, oh to be young again!) , so much for a cruise to a podium, although I knew Zac would probably fade he has the benefit of youth, something I can no longer draw on. This was not a good start to the race and add in a hot day , it started at around 25c and rose quickly, together with a headwind for the first 4k (it is an 8k loop twice); I was mentally finished before I even started.
Once we started I found Ross and sat behind him, cocooned between the 5k runners who went off like scolded cats and a group of 16k runners who would challenge for the podium places. At the 2.5k point the 5k runners turned and the 16k race unfolded before me. The gun runner Ross spoke off was well ahead and barring injury a shoe in for the win. Ross was comfortable in 2nd and I was just behind him with young Zac hot on my heels.
I found the initial pace taxing into the wind and came up with all sorts of reasons why I could pull the pin and end the pain, which was unusual for me. Maybe this ‘tapering lark’ is not all it’s cracked up to be, either way by 4k I was in trouble. Zac went past me about this time and moved away with Ross and with him all thoughts of a medal. This added to my anguish and did nothing for my mental state which was now at its lowest. I had spent all week reading Matt Fitzgerald’s ‘How bad do you want it’, and realised about the 5k mark I didn’t want it at all ! This was the compounded by another runner cruising past me , so I had now moved to 5th and was seriously thinking of pulling out at the 8k mark. I have raced hundreds of races in my time and never DNF’d so the thought of doing so on a 16k WAMC race was never going to happen but option ‘B’ was to start a long 8k cool down, and work out valid reasons for this approach; truth be told I could think of none. (Funnily enough I was on Facebook yesterday, as I was tapering, and replied to a comment about taking days off as a sign of weakness, here I was thinking of pulling the pin on a 16k race; karma I think! )
Right, halfway in around 28:30; on track for my sub one hour target but on the inside well and truly finished. The Race Director and Club President cheered me on and informed me I was right on time but I remember thinking they were dreaming if they thought I’d be back within the hour, never going to happen. Reluctantly I moved onto the second lap and knuckled down to endure what I thought would be more of the same. The 4k headwind embraced me and my pace started to drop above the 3:3xmin/k I had targeted, only just, but enough.
Well at 9k it happened, the whole race changed in an instant. The lead ‘gun runner’, who was well ahead, was on the side of the path and obviously out of the race. Suddenly I was in 4th place and looking up ahead young Zac was now paying the price for racing the half the week before and I was catching him. Boom ! Suddenly the voice inside my head which was shouting for mercy was now shouting for medals and it was on like donkey kong for young and old !!
The headwind didn’t help me but Zac was paying the price big time and I know from past races he is not the best finisher. (He’s young and starts every race at suicide pace, it won’t be long before he finishes the race as the same pace and then he’ll be out of my league; if not already. ) Put these two things together and I knew I was with a good chance of a podium. At fifty my days of getting on, or even near, to a podium are limited and I was quite prepared to put it on the line for the last 6k to grab one more before my time is done. In about 4 minutes I had gone from pulling the pin for the first time in my career to putting my head down, finding a second wind , and rolling in the runner in front of me. This I did at the last turn around with 4k to go. With the wind behind me I was able to maintain the sub 3:40min/k average pace and even managed to get within less than 20 seconds to Ross, who at one point was just about out of sight. How did I do this ? When the lead runner pulled out and I could see Zac struggling my whole mental approach changed, and when I convinced the mind I could grab a medal the limiters were taken off and I was allowed to run quicker, with fatigue ejected to the back of my mind.
Although this was only a 16k race I had been through the ringer when it came to emotions. I was finished at 2k, pulling out at 4k, heading to a world of pain and 8k and reborn at 9k. This running really does teach you so much about yourself. If I had pulled the pin at any time during that race I would be typing such a different post, as it is I am happy that yet again I managed to pull it out of the fire and convince myself I could finish, and finish strong.
Was the book helpful, (ref: Matt Fitzgerald)? To tell you the truth probably not, it’s easy to sit on a train on the way to work reading about all the great athletes who have dug deep when faced with impossible odds and how the mind has helped them achieve their goals. When you’re in a massive hole at the start of the race you know it’s the mind telling you to stop but ignoring it, or even convincing the mind it is wrong, it not so easy. I suppose the real answer is to trust in you training, if you’ve put in the hard yards you will come good, you may not get the PB you were chasing but you will finish; never ever stop.
Overall I managed to grab that podium and even managed a 1 second PB finishing in 58mins 22seconds, a second quicker than my 2013 time but a world apart for race experiences. Three years ago I was in the form of my life and this was another PB in a long line of PB’s, those days disappeared for a few years but I have been lucky enough now to sneak a few more. Today I had to work so hard for that 1 second PB but I’ll take it and really it is worth so much more because of the mental torture I put myself through to get it. I’ve asked this question before about how many times I can keep going to the well and pulling these runs out , eventually the well will be dry , eventually ? Until then it looks like running easy PB’s is never going to happen (not that they really ever did?) for me in the future, at fifty if you want a PB you are going to have to REALLY WANT a PB. No worries, today I have the medal which whenever I look at it I will remember the pain and the pleasure I put myself through to get it. That piece of metal is worth so much more to me, to me it is memories of another run where I asked myself some serious questions and , this time, came up with all the right answers.
I really earned this bad boy of a medal and time with the Club President, Davo’
I’m a big fan of mental toughness and believe it is overlooked by so many runners. To this end I have been reading Matt Fitzgerald’s book ‘How Bad Do You Want It’. As with all Matt’s writing it is insightful, thought provoking and just a damn good reason to spend time reading a good book. I highly recommend all runners read this book and also the holy grail of our running group ‘80/20 running’. The ‘80/20′ Running will make you a better runner , to a point, while the ‘How bad do you want it‘ will let you notch up your effort and performance to a new level. This means new PB’s and PR’s all round. These books really are that good. Have a look around his website, http://mattfitzgerald.org/ , it is a treasure trove of all things running.
In Matt we trust…
Without giving up the plot of the book Matt states that all runners can run faster for longer and it is not the mind that dictates pace but the mind. This also backs up the work by Tim Noakes who was the first to talk about the ‘Central Governor’. I have attached a link to a Runners Connect article on the Central Governor, worth a read. https://runnersconnect.net/running-training-articles/central-governor-theory/ Tim, like Matt, puts down the limiting factor to the mind not the body.
Of course don’t stop training and just hang around eating junk food before turning up to a race and ‘thinking happy thoughts’, unfortunately that ain’t going to cut it. The mind is part of the overall package which includes training (the harder the better!) , a good training base (the longer the better) and weight (the lower the better) . I suppose the four things combined give you the tools to attack your race. Get all four right and you’ll PB (PR) for sure (assuming it is physically possible as other factors may effect your performance , like being 90 years old?) Runners , in my opinion, ignore the mind and the weight advantages. Most runners train hard if they can, over a good length of time, injury permitting. A lot of runner fall into the ‘I run a lot so can eat what I want‘ trap or even worse , ‘I run so I can eat what I like‘. Sorry people, not true. To really busy your best you need to watch what you eat and keep your weight down as much as possible. For most this is not something they can contemplate and that is fine but if you want to go faster, lose weight. It can be that simple if all other variables stay the same. Physics really I suppose.
Luckily I’m racing this weekend so will be able to put into practice what Matt has taught me from the first few chapters of his book. As I’m in the middle of a mini-taper (three days of just one run a day and it’s killing me!) I have some spare time so hope to finish the book by the time I get to the start line Sunday morning. By then I should be unstoppable ? Of course this sort of post needs a Steve Prefontaine quote to finish.
The master of mind over matter.
I’ve attached a short synopsis of How Bad Do You Want It’ to wet your appetite below.
Master the psychology of mind over muscle!
The greatest athletic performances spring from the mind, not the body. Elite athletes have known this for decades and now science is learning why it’s true. In his fascinating new book How Bad Do You Want It?, coach Matt Fitzgerald examines more than a dozen pivotal races to discover the surprising ways elite athletes strengthen their mental toughness.
Fitzgerald puts you into the pulse-pounding action of more than a dozen epic races from running, cycling, triathlon, XTERRA, and rowing with thrilling race reports and revealing post-race interviews with the elites. Their own words reinforce what the research has found: strong mental fitness lets us approach our true physical limits, giving us an edge over physically stronger competitors. Each chapter explores the how and why of an elite athlete’s transformative moment, revealing powerful new psychobiological principles you can practice to flex your own mental fitness.
The new psychobiological model of endurance performance shows that the most important question in endurance sports is: how bad do you want it? Fitzgerald’s fascinating book will forever change how you answer this question and show you how to master the psychology of mind over muscle. These lessons will help you push back your limits and uncover your full potential.
How Bad Do You Want It? reveals new psychobiological findings including:
Mental toughness determines how close you can get to your physical limit.
Bracing yourself for a tough race or workout can boost performance by 15% or more.
Champions have learned how to give more of what they have.
The only way to improve performance is by altering how you perceive effort.
Choking under pressure is a form of self-consciousness.
Your attitude in daily life is the same one you bring to sports.
There’s no such thing as going as fast as you can―only going faster than before.
The fastest racecourse is the one with the loudest spectators.
Faith in your training is as important as the training itself.
Athletes featured in How Bad Do You Want It?: Sammy Wanjiru, Jenny Simpson, Greg LeMond, Siri Lindley, Willie Stewart, Cadel Evans, Nathan Cohen and Joe Sullivan, Paula Newby-Fraser, Ryan Vail, Thomas Voeckler, Ned Overend, Steve Prefontaine, and last of all John “The Penguin” Bingham
— Matt Fitzgerald
“”How Bad Do You Want It?” will make you see your world as an endurance athlete in a new way. Fitzgerald’s research will help you become your own sports psychologist.” – Joe Friel, leading endurance sports coach and author of the Training Bible series
THE GREATEST ATHLETIC PERFORMANCES TAKE PLACE IN THE MIND, NOT THE BODY.
“How Bad Do You Want It?” looks at epic moments in endurance sports to mine habits and tactics we can use to cultivate our own mental strength.
Top athletes can seem godlike in their abilities. But no matter how skilled they are, talent takes them only so far. The hardest races demand that a champion rely as much on the mind as on the body, using it to confront the fears that we all face: fear of failure, suffering, or change, to name a few.
In “How Bad Do You Want It?” renowned endurance sports journalist Matt Fitzgerald examines the “psychobiological” model of athletic performance, exploring how athletes are able to overcome physical limitations with mental might. In gripping accounts from triathlon, cycling, running, rowing, and swimming, Fitzgerald puts the reader inside breathtaking races, shedding new light on what science says about mental fortitude and how anyone can cultivate the mental strength to surmount challenges–in sport and in life.
Matt Fitzgerald is a journalist, coach, sports nutritionist, and author of more than 20 books, including the best-selling “Racing Weight.” “
This weekend I’m racing the first ‘proper’ race of the year. By ‘proper’ I would say it is a good indicator race of what the season may hold. My two previous races this year have been a 5k, which I ran so I could move between the 45-50 and 50-55 age groups for the WAMC, and my first 100k ultra which was a one off and more about keeping me interested over the festive break.
On Sunday I’m racing the WAMC Point Walter 16k, a race I have ran 2nd twice in the last three years, and it is my current PR time for a 16k , set in 2014. Last year there was some conjecture with my finishing time when I ran 59:59:xx which the club rounded up to 1 hour. I was not happy ! The next three races in my calendar didn’t go to plan and although I ran close to my PR’s I felt I could have ran better. Luckily the Joondalup half a few months later kick started my season when I ran a sub 1hour 18minute half marathon time, which at the time I thought was beyond me. From this race I then went on to probably the best racing season of my career, at 49.
Expectations for Point Walter would be a quicker time then last year (minimum) and if I can get a sniff of a PR I’ll be very happy. A PR this weekend would give me some good feedback on my current training regime which at the moment is starting to take its toll. I have been running double days now since June last year and it will be good to start to build towards race preparation rather than distance. I certainly have a serious foundation at the moment if nothing else.
Last year I went out too quick chasing my friend Jon Higgens. Jon ran sub 57 minutes so it was a strategy fraught with danger and in the second half of the race I dropped some time due to the legs not responding to the request for more pace. Luckily I was comfortably in second place so managed to hang on for a podium finish. This year I will try and pace the race better but the old adage about teaching old dog’s new tricks perfectly sums up most runners. The moment the race starts it’s normally on for young and old and all race strategies are quickly forgotten as you chase a fellow competitor, no matter what pace or experience.
Funnily enough when I PR’d this course back in 2014 I was chasing my Steve ‘Twinkle Toes’ McKean who had conveniently forgot to tell me he was running the 5k, imagine my surprise at the initial pace and I remember thinking Steve was running well. The truth was revealed at 2.5k when Steve turned in second place for the 5k and I was let loose to continue , in the lead, for the 16k after starting at 5k pace. I actually managed to recover and run a PR so maybe this start fast and hang on strategy is the way to go. I had a similar story when I ran my first sub 35min 10k , I was running with the lead 5k runners and at the turn around just continued at that pace with one other runner. We basically flat-lined it to 5k and again I managed to hang on for my first sub 35min 10k. All thought of pacing went out the window when the gun went off and I knew I was running too quick but was determined to see how far I could go without blowing up. Luckily it was 10k and a good PR.
The moral of both of these stories is sometimes I feel you can pace yourself out of a PR. If you have a pacing strategy you will, at best, hit your goal but rarely beat it by a significant amount. The risk is of course you are in form to go faster but only realise in the latter stages of the race and by then your ability to do some serious damage to your PR time is minimal. Of course the flip side is also true where if you do go out way too quick and you’re not having a good day there is a world of pain awaiting you and no matter how short the race the ‘pain box’ is an uncomfortable place to be if you’re not expecting it. A classic quote below from Steve Profontaine sums it up nicely….
A Steve Prefontaine classic quote.
The best thing of course is to trust in you training and have a realistic time and pacing strategy prepared. Massive jumps in PR’s for me, at my stage of my running career and life in general, will be unrealistic expectations and just getting close to previous records will be a win; albeit I have a few PR’s that I might nudge this year if all goes well. New runners starting out capture PR’s every time they put on a bib and this can become addictive. Nothing beats running faster than you have ever run before and for me this is what racing is all about. Forget the runners around you, you are racing yourself and this is what makes running such an honest sport. It really is you against the clock and records set in previous races and the continual battle to get faster.
I will start a mini-taper for the race tomorrow when I will only run my morning progressive 14k giving myself the afternoon off. Friday will be a similar story with one run only. (How did two runs a day become the norm?) Saturday will be my third day off for the year, the other two days off no running was the day before the ADU 100K ultra and the day after. This taper should give me the best chance of a good time on rested (?) legs. Conditions will of course play a large part as this week has been particularly humid but as the race starts early this shouldn’t be a problem.
Racing week is a special time and normally I start thinking about the race early in the week. This one has been playing on my mind since Monday but this is a good thing as it means I am anxious, nervous and excited about the prospect. A runner needs to be on edge and only really relaxes when the gun goes off and experience takes over. Of course it is going to hurt like hell towards the end, it is a racing, but when you’re racing all you need to do is keep moving forward as fast as you can, the pressure really is off. The photo below shows the look of a runner who has really run out of fuel and is hanging on for the finish, it is to be noted on the inside I am smiling, I think?
On Wednesday, January 26, I ran 10 kilometers through a forest in Kaptagat, Kenya, with Eliud Kipchoge, a few of his friends, and some of the scientists from Nike’s Breaking2 project. It was 4 pm and still blazing hot. We were at 8,000 feet of altitude. The atmosphere was jovial. Philemon Rono, a relentlessly cheerful athlete known to his friends as askari kidogu—“Small Police”—cracked jokes at my expense for at least the first 20 minutes. To be sure, little could have been funnier than me, a very hot 6-foot-5 British man, sweating next to Rono, 5 feet 31/2 inches of pure runner.
All of a sudden, our curious-looking gang went quiet. Having lost a couple of hard-breathing scientists on the way out, casualties to the altitude, we turned around at halfway. For a brief period, with the sun muffled by an avenue of dense trees, nobody in the group said a thing. The pace gently increased from around 5 minutes per kilometer to a little north of 4:40 per kilometer. All you could hear was the hi-hat beat of sneakers on dust and the straining bellows of an outsized mzungu attempting to hang with the Olympic marathon champion.
At a dusty athletics track, Kipchoge and crew run 12 repetitions of 1,200 meters at roughly world-record pace for the marathon.Cait Oppermann for WIRED
It was during this period that I reflected upon the happy fact that I was not dead. Kipchoge has run whole marathons almost twice as fast as we were moving at that moment. Why had he chosen not to crank up the pace? Why hadn’t he killed us? Kipchoge is polite to a fault. Was he simply humoring his guests? When we returned to his training camp, another possibility emerged. This was a recovery run, and Kipchoge really does take his recovery runs that slowly. The data the Nike science team analyzed from his GPS watch shows that the kind of run he had done with us was exactly the kind of run he would have done anyway.
The thought remained with me. The previous day, at a dusty athletics track, I’d watched Kipchoge and his training group run 12 repetitions of 1,200 meters at roughly world-record pace for the marathon. (Kipchoge later told me it was “an 80 percent session”—hard but not crazy.) The day after our jog in Kaptagat, I’d watch the same group scorch 40 kilometers—or 25 miles, nearly a whole marathon—in 2 hours, 17 minutes. That, too, was real work. But on the Wednesday in between two intense days, Kipchoge had ambled his way to 20 easy kilometers, jogging in the morning and evening. Meanwhile, at his camp—a simple plot next to fields with cows, containing two tin-roofed bungalows, with no running water and long-drop toilets—he and his friends had spent their non-running time performing chores, listening to the radio, sleeping, and drinking gallons of sweet, milky tea.
I knew Kipchoge was fast. I didn’t understand how slow he could be. This, I thought, might be a moment to learn something.
The runners rinsing off the dust kicked up from their training session.Cait Oppermann for WIRED
Stress vs. Rest
A few weeks earlier, I had been training at Paddington Recreation Ground, in London, just starting on a set of mile repetitions, when I felt a little pop in my left calf. I ground to a halt. The injury was frustrating, to say the least. I’d been training hard and had been making progress. My times were coming down, my fitness was improving, I felt light. And now—out of nowhere—a setback.
But then I thought: Cowboy up. The leg didn’t feel so bad. I rested for a couple of days, then tried out the calf on a short jog. After two days of decent training—a glorious “progression run,” each kilometer faster than the last, with my friend Pete the Trumpet, plus a great track session—I felt that little pop again and once more stopped dead. I was about 3 miles from home, with no money in my pocket. It was freezing cold. The walk back seemed to take forever.
The Nike team begged me to rest properly. I saw a physiotherapist named Matt Fox, who has worked at Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers football clubs and has seen more than his share of injured calf muscles. He thought the strain was most likely a grade 1 tear of my soleus. He also counseled inactivity. “You can either rest properly now, or you can turn a one-week injury into a six-week injury,” he said. Foxes are smart, I knew.
During my eight days off, I rethought other aspects of my training. Perhaps I’d injured myself because I was working too hard. In addition to five or six runs, many of which were intense, I was also training at CrossFit twice a week—throwing weights around, jumping on boxes, and so on. The CrossFit had been excellent for me but, with the running, I was exhausted. Eventually, something was going to give. Eventually, it did.
The data that the scientists had collected on me also altered my thinking. Nike has recently contracted a garrulous Chicago physician named Phil Skiba, who has trained many elite endurance athletes, to work on Breaking2. Skiba has developed algorithms that accurately measure and predict training loads. He is particularly interested by fatigue, and the balance between what he calls the “positive and negative effects of training.” In particular, Skiba uses athletes’ training data to predict when, before a race, they should begin their taper—that is, to progressively decrease their volume of training so that they arrive on race day fresh and fast.
Every athlete has a different taper point. Some people need only a few days. Some people need weeks. The variations are explained both by differences in workload and by our physiological differences. Some athletes simply recover quicker from hard training than others, in ways that geneticists and physiologists are still trying to fully understand. Skiba’s data, however, is precise. He and the Breaking2 crew believe that Kipchoge’s taper may have started a day or two late before his previous marathons and that he would have benefitted from around a week of rest rather than his normal five days.
Kipchoge, center, and other runners from the camp on their way to a training session.Cait Oppermann for WIRED
Whether it’s worth shifting Kipchoge from his normal patterns for this one race is a concern among the Breaking2 team, especially because routine is psychologically important to athletes. But their analysis shows how a data-augmented approach might yield benefits even for the greatest runners. (As for Lelisa Desisa, another of the three elite runners contesting Breaking2, the Nike scientists believe his taper may be a few days too long.) In my case, based on how I’ve reacted to my training load so far, they believe I should taper for 21 days. 21 days! Clearly, I am more in need of rest than the average lummox.
Slowly by Slowly
Back to Kenya. Watching Kipchoge’s group at work, I saw that they never did two intense days back to back; they were always committed to developing their fitness, in the Kenyan parlance, “slowly by slowly.” Patrick Sang, Kipchoge’s coach and a formidable presence in the athlete’s life, explained to me the basis of this philosophy as he stood at the side of the track with a stopwatch in his hand and his red-and-black hoodie fastened tightly around his head. Our conversation had begun when I asked Sang why Kipchoge’s group were doing a 12 x 1,200-meter session on that day.
Sang said this session was to build “speed-endurance”—the ability to maintain a high speed for a long time. But if you thought about only one workout, you missed the point. The idea of a training program, Sang told me, was to improve every aspect of a runner. The approach was holistic. If you scheduled a speed-endurance session for a Tuesday, you needed to make sure that the following day would be light, so that the guys had time to recover before the Thursday long run. Friday would again be light, before a different kind of speed workout on Saturday. Sunday was a day of rest. A good day of training was worth little on its own, but a good month was worth plenty. Slowly by slowly, the athlete’s shape came. “Every session is a building block,” Sang said.
Patrick Sang, Kipchoge’s longtime coach and a proponent of the “slowly by slowly” training philosophy.Cait Oppermann for WIRED
Valentijn Trouw, Kipchoge’s Dutch manager, told me something else interesting: He thought Kipchoge never killed himself in training. The only day on which he would drain every resource he possessed was on race day. “Never 100 percent in any session,” Trouw said. “That’s the philosophy.” This approach made sense to Skiba. “The time to open up a can of whup-ass is on race day,” he told me. “Otherwise, you risk leaving your best performance in training, where nobody sees it.”
“Slowly by slowly” is not a mantra that lends itself to hard-charging Western approaches to fitness. How often do we hear that only hard work brings rewards—that the more you put in, the more you get out? Also, many average Western athletes, like me, do so much of their training at a consistent pace. There’s not enough variation or rest in their schedules. The Kenyans, particularly those in Sang’s group, are more sophisticated in their approach. I’ve never seen more-committed athletes, in any sport, anywhere in the world. But they also know it would be crazy to grind themselves into the dust.
On my last day in Kenya, I was talking to Geoffrey Kamworor, a runner with a wide gap-toothed smile and an easy manner that masks a profound belief in his own talents. As a runner, everything about him is purposeful. In training, he leans into bends with his shoulder, kicking up dust behind him, like a young bull on the charge. In competitions, he is fearless. Now in his mid-twenties, he is the reigning world half-marathon champion and the world cross-country champion. He also won a silver medal in the 10,000 meters at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing.
Kipchoge and his team enjoy a post-training tea.Cait Oppermann for WIRED
When I asked him what tips he could give to a mzungu attempting to break 90 minutes for the half-marathon, his first thought was to get a good pacemaker. He offered his services. “If you want 4:20 [minutes per kilometer], that’s no problem, I will bring a newspaper,” he said, a bright smile on his face. “If you want 2:50 [minutes per kilometer; 2-hour-marathon pace] that’s also no problem.”
He then became more serious and gave me some real advice.
