Copenhagen Marathon 2010 - Race Report

Hi guys,

I'm finally back from Copenhagen and have some time to write a race report. In summary I kept it pretty easy, paid very close attention to form and technique, and wanted to see if I could go under 4 hours. I'm happy to say I managed to do this, and even managed to speed up as the race went on.

The days leading up to Copenhagen weren't that great as I had to travel to Spain on business, and there were some travel nightmares on the way to Copenhagen. So by the time I arrived in Copenhagen very late on Friday night I was thoroughly exhausted after a 15 hour travel experience.

The next day, I simply picked up my race number from the marathon expo and had two portions of pasta (although it did cost me 80 Danish kroner). That's around $20 in New Zealand, or £9. I was still feeling pretty tired that day and all I really wanted to do was just turn up and run in Copenhagen. After the strain of the previous few days, the mentality I was carrying was "let's get it over and done with".

Race day came, and the conditions were pretty much perfect, if a little windy. At times I encountered a few strong headwinds along the Copenhagen waterfront. It was a 9:30 start time, the sun was already high in the sky, but the clouds were also out and so it was quite cool and pleasant to run in. Around 15000 runners congregated on Islands Brygge, where the start and finish line was, and it was announced that the number of foreign runners taking part this year has also grown, which is great for the event.

Eventually I was under way, and if you're going to take a marathon slowly, the first few hundred metres are always going to feel like a walk in the park. Initially, I wanted to just go under 4 hours. However when I passed the first km marker at 5:40, which is pretty much the pace required to go under 4 hours, I thought maybe I could shoot for 3:50 instead. I tend to speed up as the race goes on, so a faster time per km will get me safely under 4 hours.

The halfway point comes up and I registered 1:54:19. Still feeling good and on track for 3:50:00. How about I push the pace a little, but not too much so as to completely wreck myself? Of course the run did get harder on the legs as the distance went on (my hamstrings are usually the first to complain), but at no point did I fatigue heavily, hit the wall, or cramp up in the latter stages of the run. The second half was 1:48:58, which gave me a finish time of 3:43:17. A new season best for the year!

Expecting to finish in just under 4 hours, I didn't expect to run this time coming into the race. However, I also didn't feel any sense of delight when I knew that I was on course for this kind of time. I just felt indifference when I crossed the finish line. I guess it was due to it being just another training run, and that I know I can go faster... so I guess the real question now is how much faster can I really go? Not wanting to sound arrogant, but I didn't even feel that tired at the end!

Afterwards, I had a quick massage and managed to walk back to the hotel. The hotel was around 2-3 km from the finish line, yet I didn't have any difficulty walking back. I would've thought I was going to limp the whole way, but I just managed to walk normally without any pain or difficulty. Instead of crashing to sleep, I actually stayed awake for most of the day and treated myself to a huge pizza.

After a bit of reflection, I have to say that the extra attention to technique has really helped carry me over 42.195 km. One focus point is my breathing, and when I really concentrate on breathing and getting sufficient oxygen into my system I just find that running becomes that much easier. Maybe it's a combination of the psychological (getting the mind off the pain in your legs) versus the physiological (oxygen for energy). Another area is the use of my hips when running. I found that my quads and calves weren't as fatigued because I engaged my hips a lot more, especially in the final 10 km of the marathon. Of course they became sore the morning after, but during the run I never felt any cramp, fatigue or extreme tightness and I was still able to keep pace and even speed up when I needed to.

I also have to credit the hill work I've done over the past month and a half, which in conjunction to better technique, helped me through the tough parts and made me a stronger runner. Copenhagen is a predominately flat course with a few hills included for good measure, so the hill work I've put in has certainly paid dividends.

I really shouldn't feel indifference now towards that race time. I broke 4 hours without much effort, and that run bodes well for the future especially if I increase my training intensity in the coming weeks. With only 120 days left to Berlin, I'm really entering the business end of my training and am excited at what I can achieve at Berlin in September. The dream of running a sub 3-hour time is still alive!

To summarise, here are some of my personal highlights, and lowlights, of this year's Copenhagen Marathon.

Highlights

• Free t-shirt with your race pack. Always a nice thing to have.
• Plenty of lovely looking Scandinavian lady runners taking part. That's always a good thing! ;-)
• Decent crowd support along the way. Not as great as Rotterdam, but still decent.
• You get to run through/past some of Copenhagen's major landmarks such as Christiansborg Palace, Gammel Strand, and The Little Mermaid (currently in Shanghai).
• Free massage at the end! Unfortunately, since it's free, demand is quite high, but I only waited for 10 minutes.

Lowlights

• Running on Copenhagen's cobbled streets can be uncomfortable.
• Course was largely a 2 lap repeat, so it can be a bit boring and discouraging at the same time.
• Live bands not that inspiring. Mostly just played classical/big band music, which doesn't really suit what a runner wants to hear when they run.

2 down, 3 to go. Helsinki is next, but I'm currently debating on whether I should really take part in this event. Berlin is 6 weeks later and I'm considering whether I'll be in proper shape come race day at Berlin. More on this later.

Another solid time in Copenhagen. However, the most important thing was that I focused on the key objectives, in particular keeping attention to form and technique, and keeping the effort easy as well. I think I was successful in meeting these objectives. The sub 3:45 time was just the icing on the cake.

Best,

Aaron

P.S. Here's a picture of me with my medal, just after I crossed the finish line. Even though I mentioned that I felt indifferent when I finished, I seem to look pretty pleased in this picture. Maybe I'm thrilled that I can definitely do better at Berlin, another 17 weeks away!

Off to Copenhagen

Hey all,

Just a quick note that I'm running the Copenhagen Marathon this Sunday. This is the 2nd marathon of the year, and I'm already heading into new territory with the amount of marathon running done this year. I've only done a maximum of two marathons a year (back in 2007), so with a few more planned this year I'm already raising the number to crazy heights!

I don't know much about the Copenhagen Marathon, or the city as well, so it should be an interesting experience, which could turn out to be "love it or hate it". If their website is accurate, the number of runners is around 12000+ and they're still accepting registrations! The course profile indicates a undulating race from start to finish so I don't think it will be a fast race.

As intended, the goal is to keep this as easy as possible, so if I can do another sub 4-hour time, I'd be extremely happy. Over the past few weeks technique has really been hammered into me. So the things to focus on are: correct running form, proper breathing, and keeping the effort to around a 6/10. If I feel like I'm running on oxygen alone (figuratively speaking of course) then I've done my job! Let's see if I can concentrate for 42.2 km!

See ya

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

Training Week 21 Recap

Hi all,

Here is the recap for week 21. I'm still feeling the effects of this week's training with a few sore spots in the legs. I think it's time I booked a sports massage. Trust me, they are good!

Tuesday

Type: Threshold

Time and Distance: 61 mins, 12.6 km.

Detail: 2.1 km warm up. 3 x 2800m (11:45, 11:55, 11:52) with 3 mins recovery. 2.1 km cool down with some strides near the end. Averaging around 4:10 - 4:15 min/km, but definitely getting slower as the repeats went on.

Thursday

Type: Continuous Hills

Time and Distance: 52 mins, 11.8 km.

Detail: 1.1 km warm up. 2 sets of 6 hill reps (400m) with 3 mins recovery. Each set was approximately 20 mins. 1.1 km cool down.

Saturday

Type: Easy

Time and Distance: 98 mins 9 secs, 17.6 km.

Detail: Kept it easy and conversational. Tended to go fast in places, but overall effort was easy.

Total Weekly Distance: 42 km.

Comments: 42 km this week may look like a low volume week, but it's actually been a very tough week in terms of quality. I was quite surprised at how the continuous hill session went. I'm not too sure whether the ascent was 400m (Google Maps told me this!), but 6 reps of 800m would equate to 4800m in approximately 20 minutes. I've never run a 5 km race in under 20 minutes, so to know that I can achieve this would be a great psychological boost.

Improvements: More of the same for next week. Just focus on the quality of my threshold runs and continuous hills, and I think I can't do much wrong at this stage. Continuous hills has added a new dimension to my training, so to do these is only going to make me a stronger runner.

After watching George Anderson's video on Running Technique, I've started to concentrate a lot more on my running form - in particular how to be more efficient when running. When going out for a training run, it's so easy to forget about your running technique, especially when you haven't had any exposure on what constitutes good running technique. If you watch the elites, they make running look so easy. With the right technique and the resulting economy of movement, a runner can run faster, longer and expend less energy when doing so. Check out his video, and make it a point to really concentrate on every footstep in every run.

I have my second marathon for the year lined up in Copenhagen next month. Like Rotterdam, I'm going to take it easy, and perhaps incorporate a fast finish to the race. The time isn't important, but maybe I can go better than the 3:59:22 I ran at Rotterdam with comparatively little effort.

Finally the London Marathon was on today, and the men's elite field boasted a very powerful lineup this year, including the defending champion and course record holder, current world champion, and the second fastest marathoner of all time. However, in the marathon, lofty reputations do not count and none of them managed to win this year, let alone finish the race. It was also the case for the women's race as well, with little-known, relatively inexperienced runners trumping their more experienced opponents. It's amazing to see how, on the day, a great runner with a wealth of titles and records could perform way below standard. From what I've seen I think there are two things that will carry runners through to victory. A lot of preparation, and a little race-day magic (or maybe a lot)!

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

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.