Berlin Marathon 2010 - Race Report and Conclusion

Hi,

So, going into the Berlin Marathon, I'm going to be trying something I've never done before, trying to run faster than I've ever run before in a marathon, and hopefully break 3 hours in the process.

The good news is that I did run faster than I've ever run before in a marathon, setting a new personal best of 3:21:25. The bad news is that personal best was obviously not under 3 hours.

My main aim was for my running this year was to qualify for Boston 2011 (run 3:10:59 or under in the under M35 age group). Then for some reason I upped the stakes a lot higher by setting a goal to break 3 hours in a marathon.

I admit, I did feel a little bummed when I fell so far short of this target. Actually, the writing was on the wall when I couldn't hit my target times consistently in training and in racing. But since I went into the race without putting any pressure or expectation to run as fast as I could, I was able to produce my best performance on that day, running a personal best. 80 seconds is a modest improvement from 3:22:45 from last year's Berlin Marathon, but put simply, if I had put pressure on myself to run faster than I've ever run before, there was no way that I would've set that PB on race day. So, from that perspective, I think there's hardly any reason to be disappointed. Looking back, my target was so optimistic, but as they say, if you shoot for the moon and miss, at least you'll land among the stars.

It's not my turn yet to break 3 hours, but I will get there even if it takes one minute at a time.

On to the race itself. Unlike last year, the conditions were much cooler, but there was heavy rain beforehand which caused a few large puddles on the course. Waiting in the starting pen in Tiergarten on Straße des 17. Juni with nearly 48000+ runners while it rained wasn't a nice experience, but at least it wasn't 20 something degrees like last year. The music, This is The Moment, from the musical, Jekyll & Hyde, was playing from the loudspeakers, coupled with the release of hundreds of green balloons slowly rising high in the air. When you're out there on the biggest stage trying to prove something and reaching an unlikely target, it felt like The Moment before I even took my first stride! But I reined in the emotions and tried not to go out on the course in a blaze of glory.

And when I got out there in the wet, I was running somewhere around 4.7 min/km pace in the early kms, much slower than the required 4.25 min/km pace to break 3 hours. There were crowds of runners all around me to contend with early on, but I don't think I made an effort to avoid them. For some reason I didn't want to speed up in the first 20 kms; all I kept telling myself was to relax and enjoy The Moment. The Boston qualifying time was probably still realistic, but I had to make something happen in the second half of the course to do this. With the cooler temperatures this year, I had a decent chance.

I hit the half way point half a minute slower than last year, but still felt quite strong and was hoping that I could just cruise to the 20 mile mark and make it happen in the last 6 miles. Unfortunately I couldn't stay strong throughout. At 23 km, I developed some discomfort in my right hamstring, and stopped briefly to stretch it. I did try to take my mind off the pain, and it did go away. However the pain continued to return, subside, and return again as the race progressed further, and I ended up slowing down to around 4.8 mins/km pace by the 30 km mark.

Of course I got even more tired and my pace between 30 - 40 km went from 4.8 min/km pace to a shade over 5 min/km pace. Knowing that getting into Boston was going to be unrealistic, I said to myself that there's no way I'm leaving Berlin without a new PB, especially with all the hard work I've put into training. Then I thought about that video, about the guy who broke 3 hours in his 11th Boston Marathon and how he must've worked and how he was feeling in those final miles. If he could finish with a new personal best, then I can too!

So around 38 km, and the stage where the runners enter Potsdamer Platz, I made up my mind to go faster. I kept surging, surging on Potsdamer Straße, Leipziger Straße, Jerusalemer Straße, Charlottenstraße, and finally Unter den Linden, wanting that PB, bleeding, clawing and scraping for it to happen. Every time I surged I had to slow down, but once I recovered I surged again, and again, and again. I kept doing this, visualising that I was breaking down a brick wall with a mighty sledgehammer (not that I was really hitting the dreaded wall myself!). It was a battle, not only with my legs but with my mind, a battle I can safely say I won.

When I got to the Brandenburg Gate, just shy of the 42 km mark, I knew that I had a personal best in the bag. Like last year, I consciously ran through the middle column of the structure, experiencing the same thrill when I first ran Berlin. So it was there that I poured it out on the final stretch until I crossed the finish line feeling like I had nothing left in the tank.

I was shattered both physically and emotionally. I honestly gave it my best that day. Trying my best to ignore the pain that was starting to kick in from sudden inactivity, I reflected on the entire journey leading up to Berlin. It has been such a long season by non-elite athlete standards, I felt like I've been running forever and needed a well-deserved break from it all!

A few days after the race, I've had a chance to reflect on my performance, my year of running and my goals. I can honestly say that I ran my best race, but thinking that I could do it in 3 hours or less was very optimistic of me. I've learned the hard way that it takes a lot of time and effort and, for me, much more than a year's worth of running to reach it. Having said that there's absolutely nothing wrong with setting lofty goals, so if you don't meet your goal in the first place, don't let that discourage you from trying again. Failure is not falling down but refusing to give up. There will always be other marathons, and other fast courses for me to go out and break 3 hours. Now is not the time.

With regards to my training, I think that by joining the FP Run Club I was able to get some new and fresh ideas for training for a marathon. The sub-3 hour programme was tough but I managed to stick to it, even though I wasn't on track for a sub-3 hour performance. Being asked to run a sub 1:30 half marathon by week 6 of the programme was not realistic for me, so that was when I knew it was going to be an improbability to meet my target. The good thing is that the training programme can be reapplied for future marathons.

Looking to the future, I'm still intent on breaking 3 hours, but to have a decent chance of meeting my target, I will need to switch focus from being a marathon runner to running shorter distances. Don't get me wrong - long distance running is still my focus and my passion, but if I want to get faster in a marathon I need to learn how to run faster over these shorter distances, e.g. mile, 3k, 5k distances. My times over these distances aren't that fast, I think my best 5k time is a shade under 21 mins, which isn't too shabby but could do with lots of improvement. Once I learn how to run faster over these distances, then this will go a long way to running a marathon at the pace required to break 3 hours.

So what's next for me? Well, I registered for the Athens Marathon, but at the moment I haven't recovered fully from Berlin and it will take some time to do so. My right hamstring hasn't really responded well to rest, and I managed to catch a nasty cold a couple of days after the race, so regrettably I am going to withdraw from Athens and take a break from running for an extended period of time. The break will allow me to reassess my running goals both over shorter distances and marathon distance. For shorter distances, I would really like to run a sub-19 min 5k, a sub-40 min 10k, and also have another shot at a sub-1:30 at the Reading Half Marathon, which I've entered for the 3rd time! A chance for me to really get faster and have a much more realistic chance of breaking 3 hours next year! But for now, rest, recovery and doing the things I couldn't do so easily while I was in training. There are a lot!

There have been a fair amount of people that have been instrumental thus far who deserve special mention. In no particular order:

• The Oslo project team, or Team Oslo, or Team Åwesome, for always keeping me in check with my training, especially Andrew and Mohannad for giving up some of their time to help me in training
• My various Twitter and blog followers, and also like-minded marathon runners in joining me for the ride and providing their support. Special thanks to AndrewENZ, shafk, si_brim and others for sharing their experiences and feedback along the way. Much appreciated!
• George Anderson and the FP Run Club for giving me a new approach to training, and something for me to build on in the future.
• My Oslo masseuse, Aina, for working her magic and being generous with her rates, time and knowledge.
• My good friends and the two S's - Shaun and Shanta. Shaun, for helping me in training with his sometimes tortoise-like pacing, and being a good sport and great company while I was training in the UK despite a couple of horror stories which will make great roasting material about him! Shanta, for imparting her infinite wisdom on things not related to running, but relevant to life itself. Because there is more to life than just running, even though it never felt like that over the past year!
• The rest of the gang, too numerous to mention by name, back in UK, NZ and, last but not least, Palma for their humour, support and other contributions to keep me entertained and motivated.
• And my family for being supportive of my running, even though I don't come from a family of runners. This will definitely change from now on.

This blog is a journey and so far it's still an ongoing one. In the meantime, I'm going to take a break from running so that I can reassess my goals and set new ones along the way. This means I won't be updating my blog for a while. I have to say that training and maintaining a blog at the same time is very hard work (believe me, there have been times where I don't want to do either!). Hopefully I won't be out of action for too long and hopefully you'll be around when I resume the journey of breaking 3 hours!

Signing off for now,

Aaron

P.S. Me with Berlino the Bear at the Berlin Marathon expo. Yeah, me and Berlino are good mates! After the race we exchanged phone numbers.

The Plan to Attack Breaking Three Hours

Hi,

So, going into the Berlin Marathon, I'm going to be trying something I've never done before, trying to run faster than I've ever run before in a marathon, and hopefully break 3 hours in the process.

And almost every race I've completed, it's always been my aim to try and set a new personal best. When I reach the start line, I cannot help getting pumped up and thinking that this is the race that I go out and hit a six (for those cricket fans) or a home run (for those baseball fans).

But what if I don't hit a big one on the big day? It may happen that even though I'm fully psyched up, I just couldn't deliver the goods that I thought I could.

Over the past few days I've reflected on those races where I did well, and those not so well, and tried to figure out the different mental approaches going into each race. After all, running the marathon is all about being mentally strong as well as getting your body physically strong and healthy when you approach the start line.

There seems to be a trend in my relatively short racing career that the second time doesn't seem to go as well as the first. I can only say that in the second time I develop a natural expectation to do A LOT better than the previous time. So I work myself up, knowing that I can do a lot better, only to not meet expectations in the first place. There may be progress, but perhaps not in the grand quantities that I perceived earlier.

When I raced Reading earlier in the year, I was aiming to go under 1:30 and knock over 6 minutes off my personal best. Because I was trying to break 3 hours in a marathon I put huge pressure and expectation on myself to perform that day, and even though I set a new PB in the half marathon the mentality of I'm going to run harder than I've ever run before that I carried into that race made me force the pace and effort very early in the run, which meant I blew up far too early and didn't have enough in the back half to sustain that pace.

On the opposite end, I ran Copenhagen for the first time and I wasn't feeling mentally pumped up going into the race. I had a pretty bad travel experience getting into Copenhagen that I just didn't feel like showing up at all. I didn't have any expectation other than to have some fun and enjoyment in Copenhagen and finish in 4 hours. I finished in 3:43, including a negative split. It certainly wasn't a PB, but it felt like one. I ran faster than I thought I would do on that given day.

So what does that tell me about how I will race at Berlin on Sunday? I think it tells me that I need to take the pressure off by going into Berlin with an open mind. The weather will play a big part and I could hit the halfway point slower than anticipated. Rather than go into Berlin with the mentality of I'm going to run harder than I've ever run before, I'm going to approach it like I did when I ran Copenhagen. This means I'm going to relax and let the effort flow more naturally out of me. I'm not expecting it to be easy, it's certainly going to be a battle that I will enjoy fighting. But above all I'm going to have fun in Berlin and if I approach it with that fun and relaxed mentality then the body will perform better compared to when it's tensed up.

To summarise, going into Berlin on Sunday, which also is my second time, I won't make the same mistake that I did at Reading. I won't be thinking that this is my one shot to hit the big one and that I will be going harder than I've ever run before.

Instead I'm going into Berlin thinking that this is going to be fun and it's going to be a big challenge for me. It certainly won't be easy, but I've prepared for this for many months and know that I'm at the top of my game. So rather than force the pace on race day, I'm just going to let the effort flow naturally as the race goes on, especially in the first few miles where it's so easy for me to go too fast. Above all, it all boils down to having fun and enjoyment on the day.

So, going into Berlin on Sunday, I'm going to let the race flow out of me, and I hope to reach the finish line feeling very proud of my performance.

Aaron

Training Week 42 Recap

Hi folks,

There's only 1 more week to go, and this is the stage where nothing more can be done, where I need to let the body recover in order to be strong on race day. This is the stage where I need to believe in my fitness and the training I have done over the past few months, and beyond that! It is finally coming to an end and right now I should be excited, organised and looking forward to race day. Here's how the week went.

Monday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 40 mins 19 secs, 5.8 km.

Tuesday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 35 mins 52 secs, 5.3 km.

Wednesday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 45 mins 49 secs, 7.7 km.

Thursday

Type: Mixed pace

Time and Distance: 91 mins, 18 km.

Detail: Warm up for 15 mins (approx 2.4 km), then 10 x 3 mins at threshold pace (approx 700m) then 10 mins at steady pace (approx 600m). Cool down for 16 mins (approx 2.6 km).

Saturday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 39 mins 38 secs, 7.5 km.

Detail: Warm up for 5 mins (approx 750m), then 5 x 5 mins at threshold pace (approx 1200m) with 60 secs recovery. Cool down for 5 mins (approx 750 km).

Sunday

Type: Recovery

Time and Distance: 44 mins 47 secs, 7 km.

Total Weekly Distance: 51.3 km

Comments: Another relatively easy week. No long runs, which is great! The final key session on Thursday I managed to get through totally unscathed, and it amounted to 13 km in 60 minutes. This did bump up the mileage slightly from last week, but nothing to worry about.

Improvements: It's marathon week! The final week is going to focus less on running, and more on recovery and staying strong. Being in Oslo on secondment means that I'm eating out a lot for free, but this time I need to be really selective on the food I eat this week, so I'm going to be cooking a lot of carb-rich meals in the apartment. I'm getting a bit more sleep nowadays, but it is difficult getting to sleep on time especially with so much other things going on as well. Finally, I'm a notoriously bad stretcher, so I'll have to maintain the flexibility without tearing a muscle. Now that would really suck!

This week is also going to be an exercise in juggling marathon prep, work deadlines and other obligations and if it wasn't for work deadlines looming I think I would be in a better position. There is a significant work deadline coming up at the end of the week I return from Berlin, and a lot of my tasks are still pending, which means I may have to put in a couple of extra hours in the 3 working days I have this coming week. I leave for Berlin on Thursday afternoon where I'll spend a couple of days relaxing in this great city, before finally letting it out on the course on Sunday. I return back to Oslo on Monday afternoon, and if it wasn't for this significant work deadline in that week I would gladly spend a lot longer in Germany. Work deadlines have to be met of course, but that shouldn't go as far as compromising my preparations for this important race. After all, this race came up first.

I will also need to believe in my fitness and training, and surround myself with positive people. I found a moving video on YouTube featuring American 50k record holder Josh Cox and the magic of the marathon. It featured a runner called Jeff trying to break 3 hours at Boston this year, with Josh acting as his pacesetter and providing encouragement to him along the way. Indeed he broke 3 hours in the end, and I hope that I, too, can replicate that special marathon magic that got Jeff home in under 3 hours. We will see next week!

Starting to believe,

Aaron

Official Statement - Withdrawal From Helsinki Marathon

Hi all,

After much consideration, and with equally the same amount of reluctance, I have decided to withdraw from the Helsinki marathon in mid-August. The event is six weeks out from my target event and to run Helsinki, even at a very leisurely pace, would put me at risk of not being at my very best for Berlin and reaching the Breaking Three Hours goal.

When I started to map the road to Breaking Three Hours, I initially thought that I would be okay to run Helsinki and be fully fit for Berlin, despite having some minor concerns that Helsinki and Berlin were six weeks apart. So, needing to get in early, I registered for both events.

However, after running two marathons this year, listening to feedback, and having just started the 16 week programme designed by the FP Run Club, these concerns have escalated recently and I was forced to rethink my training strategy for the next 3 months.

Initially I intended these lead-up marathons to be like"glorified long runs", in that I do my weekend long run at marathon distance and in a marathon setting. It sounded like a good idea at the time. However, doing these regularly does put a lot of stress on you physically and mentally, and it does take some time to recover from these efforts.

Case in point, after Rotterdam and Copenhagen I didn't run for a week. After a typical long run, I'd normally take one or two days off and get back into training. Even though I felt like I was able to run and having little soreness in my legs, I was still pretty tired and it took some time for me to get back into quality training. I never struggled at any point in these lead-up marathons and kept them as easy as possible, but the amount of time spent on my feet started to become a game of diminishing returns, which led to a case of a long and slow recovery period. Erring on the side of caution, I tend to recover slower than I would like.

I've also started the 16-week, sub-3 hour training programme designed by the FP Run Club. When I studied the first week of the programme to see what I was getting myself into I got a really big shock. 8 training runs in 6 days! I've never done anything like this before. While the majority of runs have been easy and the hard days prescribed were manageable, the amount of running needed and the tough demands of the programme will only get higher as the weeks progress.

Having not seen the entire programme, I imagine that weeks 9-13, which also coincides with the Helsinki marathon, is the time where the demands placed on me to produce quality mileage and speed will be at the highest. Running the Helsinki marathon, regardless of completing it in under 4:00 or over 5:00, would be highly detrimental and would affect my output in that critical period. Moreover, the subsequent couple of weeks after Helsinki would most likely be spent on the long and slow recovery process, effectively stalling any progress I could make towards Berlin.

Last year, when training for the Berlin marathon, I did my final long run 2 weeks prior to the event. From a naive view, it was a great run - 37 km in 2:57:41. In hindsight I probably made a big mistake. On race day, I finished in 3:22:45, which meant that my marathon pace was just slightly faster than my long run pace. But I felt the difference should've been greater. Two possible reasons were:

• My long run was way too fast.
• Doing the long run two weeks out didn't allow enough time to recover and be at 100% on race day.

This year, I've gained a bit more experience and I believe that withdrawing from Helsinki would give me a much better shot at a faster time at Berlin. Ultimately in order to run a sub-3 hour time, it comes down to being physically and mentally prepared (as well as having many things go your way on the day!). Having Helsinki thrown in the mix isn't really going to help my preparation and may even go as far as hurting it.

The goal of running a sub-3 hour marathon is really important to me, and I've learned that in order to achieve an objective that you've firmly set your sights on for nearly half a year, you must be willing to make a few tough choices along the way. Withdrawing from Helsinki was a tough decision since I was intent on running it, but pulling out of Helsinki is going to allow me to focus on the real goal - to break three hours.

Having already registered, this is my first event where I will get a DNS, a Did Not Start in running parlance. It's a shame that there isn't a shorter alternative race at Helsinki on that day, such as a half marathon or even a 10K, otherwise I'd probably still participate knowing that the demands of running a reasonably fast 10K or a half marathon doesn't really compare to running a marathon, regardless of your time. It does hurt not to have a time next to your name in a race that you have registered and prepared for (a black mark in a runner's long distance career), but in the bigger picture it will pay dividends when it matters the most. For now, rather than viewing the DNS as Did Not Start, I'll look at it as Did Nothing Stupid.

Cheers!

Aaron

Training Week 24 Recap

Hi all,

This is going to be a short recap for the week. Tomorrow (the usual day of writing these recaps) I fly to Palma on business so I'm going to write this now.

Tuesday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 49 mins 33 secs, 11.8 km.

Detail: 1.1 km warm up. 3 sets of 4 hill reps (400m up, 400m down) with 2 mins recovery. First set was 12:35, second set was 13:00, third set was 12:58. 1.1 km cool down.

Thursday

Type: Intervals

Time and Distance: 45 mins, 8.55 km.

Detail: 15 mins warm up at 10.5 km/h pace. 4 x 800m at 15.7, 16.0, 16.3, 16.5 km/h pace with 3 mins recovery at 8.0 km/h pace. 6 mins cool down at 10.5 km/h pace.

Total Weekly Distance: 20.35 km.

Comments: A poor week in terms of quantity, but hopefully not in terms of quality. Continuous hill session and intervals have been upped or modified a notch but I had to cut the long run out as I'm going to be flat out this weekend, plus the Copenhagen marathon is next weekend, so I'm intending to enter this event as fresh as possible. Like Rotterdam, I'm going to take the event easy, and hopefully recover as quickly as possible.

Improvements: I'm going to take it easy in the coming week to be fresh for Copenhagen. I'll still do a continuous hill session and an easier run. There is my normal running route I did in Palma that incorporated an uphill climb, which is going to be great for my continuous hill session. Plus I know what sort of time I can get on this run, so if I better it this time round I know I've gotten fitter since the last time I ran it.

I've checked the running calendar and there is only 19 more weeks to the Berlin marathon, which is the event I'm targeting for sub-3 hours. Time really does move fast! There's also 3 more weeks till the start of my 16 week training programme designed by the FP Run Club, so I'm really eager to start training according to a plan designed by the experts. I'm also eager to see how difficult it can get, just to see if I'll handle the rigours of their training plan!

I had a sports massage last night, and I have to say it was okay, if a little disappointing. It didn't hurt as much as I had expected, which is good as I have no injuries or niggles to worry about. Plus it seems my legs are in great shape. However I wonder if the masseuse could have gone a little harder - obviously she doesn't want to give me huge amounts of pain brought on by her elbows and knuckles.

My separate entry on running form and technique will have to come in a later post, sorry. I've been too busy this week on other things, so I will visit this section in future. Don't miss it.

Cheers!

Aaron

A step in a different direction

Hi guys,

This afternoon I had the pleasure of chatting to George Anderson on the phone for roughly an hour, talking about my training direction and my focus. The conversation was very enlightening and George offered ideas that I probably wouldn't have considered had I been training on my own.

I recently joined the FP Run Club, which is an online coaching resource combining the experience of the UK's top running coaches. George launched the FP Run Club a couple of months ago to support marathon runners wanting to achieve their goals. He also offered two free coaching calls to his Twitter followers (ah, good ol' Twitter) if they signed up to the FP Run Club within a particular time. I quickly jumped to the opportunity.

On the phone, I told George about my goals, my training direction and what I've normally done in training. He also took note of the event I'm preparing for (Berlin on September 26th).

George commented that September 26th is still a fair bit of time away. What he was really getting at is that the running programmes offered by FP Run Club have a maximum length of 16 weeks! At the time of writing, I have exactly 26 weeks to Berlin. The 16-week running programmes are designed with time goals in mind, from just finishing a marathon to sub-3 hours which is what I want to follow. The rationale is that extended periods of training would more likely be more harmful than good, such as peaking at the wrong time, or picking up injuries as a result of prolonged training. This leaves me 10 weeks of running to no programme, so what am I to do?

On the phone, George recommended 6 weeks of hard running, followed by 2 weeks of taper prior to starting the running programme. Since I actually have 10 weeks to go, I'm going to make this 8 weeks of hard running, followed by 2 weeks of taper. George also recommended that I drop the long run and hard intervals entirely, and devote most of my focus on hill work and threshold runs. After noting down the pace and distance of my recent long runs, he suggested that I limit the time spent on my feet to around 90-110 minutes, instead of going as far as 150-180 minutes. The extra volume will most likely lead to injury, and since I'm already accustomed to running long distance, I'm already running to my strength instead of addressing my weaknesses. My weakness, which I've alluded to in my earlier post, is speed endurance (the amount of time where high speeds can be maintained).

I mentioned that my 5 km splits in the Reading Half Marathon were averaging between 22-23 minutes. George advised me not to look into it too deeply, but agrees that if I want to break 3 hours this year I would need to lower my 10 km time to around 35-38 minutes if I were to run a 10 km race. The only way to get faster over shorter distances is to increase the quality of my threshold and hill runs, and not focus on volume, which is something I've been guilty of (by association!) over the past couple of months.

Two key workouts that George proposed include:

• Threshold running
• Continuous hills

I'm already familiar with threshold running, having done forms of it in training already. George defined over the phone what he believes threshold running is, and I'll be trying to incorporate that definition into my training.

Continuous hills is a whole different workout for me. Also known as Kenyan hills, which was popularised by the Kenyans, who are of course the world leaders of distance running. Looking back at my past training schedules, hill workouts have been very few and far between. So I'm keen to include hill training as a regular run in my training programme.

As to the frequency of training, George stresses quality over volume. I've already known this, but looking at my past training recaps, I've been emphasising volume over quality instead. For the 10 week period, George recommends at least a continuous hills session, a threshold session and a long run session, with some recovery runs thrown in. I'm not sure what's in store in the 16-week training programme, but the 10 week "preliminary period" is designed to get me in the best possible form to allow me to undertake the 16-week sub-3 hour training programme. Without the long run at this stage, I'm using these preliminary 10 weeks as a means of improving my times at shorter distances, and I mentioned to George that the kinds of running workouts in this period is similar to training for a 10 km race (just without the faster intervals).

Lastly, I mentioned to George that I'll be running the Rotterdam marathon in April and the Copenhagen marathon in May. These will be like my marathon long runs, so to speak. As I expected, George advised me to take these slowly and run for the experience.

Overall, this was a very fruitful discussion with a top running coach, who has given me something new to focus on. I can't wait to get started again.

Itching to get the running shoes on,

Aaron

200 Days To Berlin

¡Hola a todos!

As you might gather from the greeting, I'm now in Spain for the week. Not a bad place to be in the first week of the taper period leading up to the Reading Half Marathon. Unfortunately, it's not all fun and games as I'm here on business, plus the fact that I've fallen sick right after my hardest training period. At this stage it's best that I stop running and try to recover as quickly as possible, before I start to do any running this week. Hopefully this won't put me off the roads for long! Here's a picture of Castell de Bellver in Palma, which is where I did quite a lot of my running when I was in Spain before.

I had a look at the timer on my blog, and noted that there are 200 days left until the Berlin Marathon, which is the marathon I'm focusing on to break three hours in. It does sound like a lot of time, but if you factor in the off-days, e.g. taper days, easy days, missed training days and sick days (like now!), then these things can eat a huge chunk of time out of your available training days. In an earlier blog post I mentioned that I had 259 days left, so up to now, over 8 weeks (a fifth of my training period) have passed. I always provide training recaps every week, but it's also good to recap over several weeks as I'm interested to know how much I have progressed since then.

Of course, the only real way to know that I have made improvements is by racing (assuming nothing goes wrong during the race), so by peaking for the Reading Half Marathon I'll have a general indication of how well I'd perform in a marathon. According to the McMillan Running Calculator a 1:30:00 half marathon time would equate to roughly a sub 3:10:00 marathon time. It's not sub 3-hours, but it's a step in the right direction. The calculator isn't going to be accurate for everyone's performance, but for me it seems to be giving close enough times.

Looking at the training schedules, I'd say that I'm running as hard, if not harder, than I was when I did Berlin last year. At this stage, I've already put in more miles in training than last year's preparation for the Reading Half Marathon. I'm feeling confident that I can set a new PB in the half marathon, but I won't dare to be bold in saying that I'd go under 1:30:00 on race day. But let's hope that I do, so that it gives me the reassurance that I'm heading in the right direction, and that I can finally update my personal bests section on this blog!

Hasta pronto (see you soon in Spanish),

Aaron

Making Every Mile Count

Hi all,

Since my last post, I've added a countdown timer to this blog showing the number of days left to Berlin 2010. It's a great method to see at-a-glance how many days I have left to the event that I'm targeting for sub 3-hours.

At the time of writing, 259 days does sound like a lot of time. However if you factor in the days for the mandatory taper period, rest days, easy days, missed days of training for whatever reason, and days when you are sick, tired, don't feel like running, or even injured (hopefully not!), then these things can eat a huge chunk of time out of those available 259 days in my training bank.

Hence, each training session should have its purpose, whether it's to build aerobic endurance, increase lactate threshold or develop leg strength and faster stride turnover. When approaching a training session keep in mind two things:

• Keep the purpose of the training session in the forefront of your mind.
• Make every mile count.

A training diary recording the specifics of the session helps a lot! I record things like the type of training, the average pace, the length of time I spent training, distance covered and any other notes related to the training session. The idea is that in a future training session for that type of training, you should be able to move up to another gear, e.g. increase the pace, increase the distance or shorten the recovery.

So when you (and myself as well) are training for a particular goal, for every training session make every mile count. It's the sure-fire way to get closer to your goal.

Best,

Aaron

The Road To Breaking 3 Hours

Hi all,

I haven't really gone into any detail yet about what events I'll do this year in order to break 3 hours. So I'll cut to the chase now and list them out here in this entry.

But firstly, a little background (yeah I can hear the groaning now). One of my other goals for this year, peripheral to running, is to travel more widely around Europe. However, travelling can be disruptive to marathon training, especially if a trip is scheduled during a high-intensity period. It happens, and it's unavoidable. Just this week, my company planned a belated Christmas party weekend in Granada, Spain, on the 15th January. So I guess I'll be taking my running gear over with me. From a training perspective, these things have to be managed as best they can.

After some convincing I believe that to get the best of both worlds, why not run a marathon in a city that you want to travel to? So at the end of 2009, I got a year calendar and plotted all the marathon events for 2010. Most of the marathons are clumped in the March-May months and the September-November months, with a small handful of events in summer and winter. Lots of big marathons tended to be on the same day! But in the end, I picked five events, which I've called my final five. They are:

• Rotterdam: 11th April
• Copenhagen: 23rd May
• Helsinki: 14th August
• Berlin: 26th September
• Athens: 31st October

As indicated in bold, Berlin is the event that I am targeting to break 3 hours. You may be wondering whether Athens would be a better choice to target a sub 3-hour marathon as it's the last race in my calendar. Having only run Berlin before and it's reputation as the fastest course in the world, I'd be more comfortable with choosing Berlin. The course profile for Athens indicates some big hills. If I don't break 3 hours in Berlin, at least there's Athens as a backup, but I'm hoping it won't come to that.

The other 4 marathons are going to be for fun/training purposes. I chose Rotterdam as it's one of the top 10 marathons in the world according to Runners World Magazine. I've always wanted to visit Finland and Denmark. And now I have a chance to travel around these Scandinavian countries and run a marathon in each. Finally I chose Greece as it's the home of the marathon. Athens 2010 will mark 2500 years since the Greek hero Pheidippides ran from the Battle of Marathon to Athens to announce the Greeks' victory over the Persians. So far I've registered for all marathons except Helsinki and Athens. I'm a bit concerned about Athens though; I am absolutely certain that this round-number anniversary will lead to a rush of registration entries, and a quick cut-off date.

To be at their very best, elite marathoners limit themselves to only 1-2 races a year. For the last two years Haile Gebrselassie has concentrated on Dubai and Berlin, and he'll make another world record attempt at Berlin this year. With 5 races on my plate, I'll only peak for Berlin, whilst using the other 4 events for fun/training/an excuse to visit a city. Instead of saying I travelled around Athens, I could say that I ran the Athens Marathon and travelled around Athens. Of course I could just travel to Athens without needing to run the marathon, and that's fine. There will be cities that I would like to visit without needing to run a marathon in that city.

By running a marathon and treating it as a training run, I think the benefits are several. You do the most important run in your marathon training - the long slow run. And 42 km is more than enough mileage required for a typical long slow run. You also get to run around a new city and take in the sights. And you can soak up the marathon experience in a foreign country. I think doing a long run in a marathon setting in another country is more preferable to doing long runs on your own in training in our own neighbourhood. But you might have a different opinion on what makes a long run enjoyable.

But surely, you could still travel and do a couple of shorter, faster runs during your holiday. Yes, that's true. However, which would you rather do? A marathon event with thousands of other runners and screaming crowds, or just a couple of shorter faster runs by yourself. Marathon legend, Emil Zatopek, said it best: "If you want to win something, run the 100 metres. If you want to experience something, run the marathon."

One thing I'm concerned about is that by singling out Berlin as the race to break 3 hours, I only have one shot to do this. I guess the one shot approach is what makes it more exciting - the thrill of success on the first go, or the sudden crash of failure at having missed out. There is always next year though. But I hope it doesn't happen, after all I have under 9 months to plan and get ready for Berlin.

I'm quite excited about how my running in 2010 will pan out. I've never taken on anything like this before when it comes to running multiple marathons. But I guess if I put my mind to it, and keep my eyes on the original goal of breaking 3 hours, and believe, then who knows what I can achieve.

Wish me luck,

Aaron

P.S. You can follow me on Twitter, where I'll report on my training as well as the more mundane things in my life. I will include the #breaking3hours hashtag to any tweets related to my goal.

Introductions

I've been running since 2005. I have to credit my company, Orion Health, for getting me running in the first place. My company has a lot of enthusiastic sports people of varying abilities, including a world class adventure racer, an ironman, runners, cyclists, triathletes and participants from other codes, so it was no surprise that this sporting culture rubbed off on me.

I've always liked participating in sports, and considered myself to be reasonably active, but never really had any constant outlet to put my focus on. So I basically sailed through high school and my early twenties not really committing myself to any sport.

It was only when I started with Orion Health that I did my first running event, the annual Round the Bays event in Auckland. Not knowing a thing about running, I laced up a pair of walking shoes(!) and started training for it. At the end of it all I managed to finish in a reasonable time.

In 2006, I decided to run the Auckland Marathon. From running 8.4 km in the Round the Bays to attempting 42.195 km, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into; I just knew it would involve some pretty long runs in training. With a new pair of running shoes, I managed to survive the training and managed to finish my first marathon. It was a lot tougher than I expected, but I finished with a time of 4:17:04. Finishing a marathon for the first time is something I cannot describe in words.

I finally caught the marathon bug and in 2007 I managed to do two marathons. I'm not sure about you but there's always something about the second time not being as good as the first. My second marathon, Rotorua, was a lot tougher and I managed to get home in 5:00:20. In my third marathon, the Auckland Marathon, I resolved to break the 4-hour mark. With 12 weeks of training and armed with a little more experience, I managed to finish in 3:51:29.

2008 was a very quiet year in terms of running as I tried to organise my O.E. (overseas experience - the kiwi term to go abroad, work in a different environment and see more of the world). Organising my O.E. was like preparing for a marathon, only not as fun ;-)

Having made it to the UK in late 2008, I wanted to get back into my running. Being in Europe, I was lucky to have some of the big marathons of the world at my doorstep, e.g. London, Paris, Berlin. In 2009, I chose Berlin as it's the fastest course in the world, and world record holder, Haile Gebrselassie, was going to make another world record attempt. I also had a goal to run sub 3:30:00, but as my training progressed I had harboured dreams to qualify for Boston 2010.

Berlin was such a great marathon event, with an elite field, a great atmosphere, and a fast flat course. Running through the Brandenburg Gate, 400 metres from the finish, was such a thrill, probably even bigger than finishing the marathon itself. The hard work I put in in 2009 paid off greatly, and I finished in 3:22:45.

Now it's a new year, a new decade, with new dreams and goals. A new year is simply a demarcation on the calendar, but I have always found it a good time to assess and reflect upon my own goals. My motivation level may not make it all the way through the year, but I know this is the time I have set to commence achieving specific goals.

So my marathon goal for 2010 is to break 3 hours. 3 hours is like the Holy Grail for amateur runners, and a qualification time for prestigious events like Boston. Having reviewed my past training programmes, and my performances in previous marathons I admit that it is a significant and ambitious undertaking to cut 22 minutes and 45 seconds off my personal best. But you never really know unless you try.

I just read a tweet by Josh Cox, an elite marathon runner. The first step is the best step, it’s where intent meets action. Don't talk about it, be about it. I've just talked about it in my introductions. From now on I'll be blogging about my training and progress. I'm very excited to blog about any developments that will come along as I progress in my journey.

Best,

Aaron