Resurrecting the Dream

If there is anyone who takes the marathon recovery phase very seriously, I would be near the top of the list.

Normally for us marathon runners, we'd give our bodies around a week or so to get back into any sort of slow running before we undertake another serious marathon training programme.

For me, as I said in my race report, I was going to take an extended break from running. Literally. Not even a 20 minute jog around the park. The days of 7-8 training runs a week, 6 days a week were over. The tweets on running had dried up, the blog updates were no more.

Until now.

It's been 5 weeks since my assault on Berlin, and during that time I did what any other young guy would do. I went travelling. I played video games. I stayed up far too late, ate loads of fatty foods and drank too much alcohol for my liking.

But in that time of "reflection" I also came up with new dreams, new goals and new plans, and also a renewed vigour to get back into running again. After all 5 weeks is a long time, and as I recently learned it's more than enough time to eat away your fitness levels.

The overriding dream hasn't changed - after all the blog title says it all. However, when training as hard and as smart as any marathon runner could do I still came up short. Afterwards I learned how far off I was, and how much I had to go to realise that dream.

I've looked at my past races (both halves and marathons) and it's obvious that my running profile fits that of an Endurance Monster instead of a Speed Demon. So I created a new dream and that is to get faster - to become a Speed Demon. Simple as that. Running a 1:34 half marathon isn't going to lead to a sub-3 hour marathon. However, by getting faster at shorter distances I will be many steps closer to chasing that sub-3 hour marathon dream.

At the moment I don't have a goal marathon race lined up. I think it will be a while before I decide on a marathon to race. But I do have a goal half marathon race and that is the Reading Half Marathon, which I will run for the 3rd time in a row. For me it's an event I hold very dearly, being the first half marathon that I ran in the UK, setting personal bests at Reading, and even appearing in the local newspaper in the days precluding the race! These lasting impressions have always made me come back for more.

In the last Reading Half Marathon, I failed to reach my goal of a sub-1:30 time by 4 minutes. It was a bitter pill to swallow, having strongly believed that I could achieve that target. This time I have another chance to set the record straight and if I can do this and a little more, then I know that I am well on my way to breaking 3 hours.

And then there's the plan to ensure success. It starts with putting together a training schedule that includes all the components needed to run a fast half marathon, and then joining these components together and figuring out how deep I can go without getting burnt out or injured along the way.

There are under 20 weeks to go to the Reading Half Marathon. To get myself ready to go for my best half marathon time I will need to increase leg turnover and overall speed. The plan is to split up half marathon training into 3 different phases. Phase 1 will focus on getting to my best 5k/10k fitness. This will bring in shorter intervals with plenty of recovery in between. The volume will be low, but the intensity will be high. Phase 2 will then take that speed and start to add in some longer training. There will be plenty of fast intervals but now they will be longer and with less rest.

Finally in Phase 3, over the last 8 weeks I will get into the specific work necessary for the half marathon, where I will bring my best track running speed to the roads of Reading. At Reading I will look to run at an average speed of 4:15 per kilometre. By doing plenty of speed workouts early on, running in the 4:15 mins/km range won't feel so demanding. The intention is to make half marathon pace feel like running in 3rd or 4th gear. If I can do this, then it will be a big step in getting closer to that sub-3 hour marathon dream.

It starts with a dream, then a goal, and finally a plan. And it all starts right now!

Training Week 22 Recap

Afternoon all,

I have to apologise for the lack of material here on this blog! The past few weeks have been mainly training recaps and hardly anything else, and I feel that I've let my reading audience down here. I hate reeling off excuses; all I can say is that I've been really busy of late not just with training but with life as well. Hopefully you'll still find them useful.

Here is the recap for week 22. Another solid week, but I will need to up the ante very very soon!

Tuesday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 81 mins, 15.9 km.

Detail: 5.2 km warm up. 2 sets of 6 hill reps (400m up, 400m down) with 3 mins recovery. First set was 19:53, second set was 20:38. 1.1 km cool down.

Thursday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 45 mins, 8.47 km.

Detail: 15 mins warm up at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 800m at 15.0, 15.5, 15.7, 16.0 km/h pace with 3 mins recovery at 8.0 km/h pace. 5 mins cool down at 10.5 km/h pace.

Saturday

Type: Long

Time and Distance: 135 mins 15 secs, 25.6 km.

Detail: Kept it easy and conversational. First half 69 mins, second half 66 mins 15 secs.

Total Weekly Distance: 49.97 km.

Comments: I've had a pretty hard week this week. Even though they're not meant to be easy, I'm finding the continuous hills a little more manageable now, but the intervals and long run have been rather difficult because I haven't done these for a wee while now. These have been a big shock to the system, so hopefully I can adapt and improve on this.

Improvements: Having looked at my training diary for the past few weeks, I noted that most of my weekend long runs have been less than 20 km! I think that must be why my recent long run was a little on the difficult side. Despite trying to keep it easy and conversational, the legs were starting to ache a bit. From now on, all my long runs have to be at least 25 km long (obviously I can take it easy on my easier weeks!). Apart from that, just focus on the quality of my threshold runs and continuous hills. After this week's interval session, I'm tempted to resume doing treadmill interval work. However this week was a one-off as the local athletics track was unavailable to the public so I wasn't able to do any threshold running this week. If I can help it, I'll keep the intervals on the shelf for now.

This week, I read an enlightening blog post written by George Anderson on The Secrets of Faster Running. Most of these secrets were known to me, but it's amazing how much of it I actually apply in my training. In fact, when I trained for the Berlin Marathon last year and set my personal best, I neglected all of those secrets. If I knew how to apply them better at the time, imagine how much better I would have done. Let me go into more detail.

Secret # 1: Elite athletes TRAIN SLOW

Sure, I know how to run slow, but when doing my long runs and especially closer to the marathon, I was running them just slower than race pace, instead of 1-2 minutes per mile slower than was prescribed. In fact, two weeks before Berlin, my long run of 37 km was around the same pace as my actual race pace! Imagine if I didn't go that fast in training I would have arrived at the start line probably with more energy, and finished probably with a better race time.

Secret # 2: Elite athletes run fast

Throughout my "marathon career", I've learnt to increase the pace of my runs. However, I also become obsessed with pace so much that I tended to run at a particular "fast pace", then bettering it a little in the next training session. I didn't really know that by pushing the pace so often I wasn't allowing myself to get used to the pace I was running at. To compound this further, most of my fast running was done on the treadmill, which, surprise surprise, doesn't translate to fast running on the road!

Secret # 3: Elite runners don't just run

Yeah I also knew about this, but I didn't exactly know what they did outside of running. But now I know. Drills, stretches, body conditioning, mobility, stability and strength exercises. How much of this stuff did I actually do when training for Berlin last year? Absolutely none, apart from the odd bit of stretching after a run. How much of this stuff do I do now? Well, not a lot I'm afraid. I'm hoping to address this now! As an aside, before I took up marathon running, I was into strength training heavily, and no doubt this has helped in the transition to becoming a marathon runner. However, for me, doing strength training and marathon running at the same time is almost near impossible to do, so unfortunately I've had to ditch all the heavy weights. The result: I'm thinner, lighter, a better runner no doubt, but also not as strong as before. I'm not saying you have to include a full-blown strength training routine on top of your marathon training, but doing a few simple strength exercises can go a long way.

Secret # 4: Elite runners train on hills

I know about hill work. Do I actually do it? I looked at my training schedule for Berlin last year, and was quite surprised to see that I only did ONE hill session in my 24 weeks of preparing for Berlin. That session was a hard sprint up until my muscles were about to shut down, and then a walk/jog down while trying to repay my oxygen debt. Just doing it on its own isn't going to pay big dividends to my training. Actually this wasn't the only hill I ran; I did do a variety of hilly routes in my training runs but to be frank I only did one specific hill session. So far this year, I've done four quality hill sessions - four times more than last year! And still many more to come!

Secret # 5: It's not just what you run, but how you run that really matters

I've watched a lot of marathon coverage on TV and YouTube, and even seen the very best runners run in the London Marathon. And they run so effortlessly. Technique and form have been driven home to me only recently after watching George Anderson's video on YouTube, so much so that every training run I've been doing I've been paying very close attention to my running form. It hasn't been very pretty so far, especially with regards to my breathing. At times I'm trying very hard to monitor my breathing, but then I sometimes trail off into my own little world before realising that I don't remember taking any breaths for the past five minutes or so! It's because breathing is such a sub-conscious activity. Oh well, I'll get there someday!

Train hard, but also smart!

Aaron