Army Half Marathon 2018 Review

Leading up to Berlin (16th Sept) in 3 weeks time, AHM 21k was one of my key training opportunities to practice marathon pacing. I often received a common question asked by many runners who want to train for a marathon how long distance is enough to prepare. The assumption was that they have to clock up to 36km++ or more in order to feel confident to run a full marathon distance of 42.195km. These group of runners only see the distance (km) as quantifiable ROI but not time (hours and minutes) and intensity. Generally, you need not run a full marathon as a training run just to prepare for the exact distance. You don't see successful ultrarunners running 100km in a single training session to race a 100km event but they spent a lot of time training for it. Train by time than distance. One has to see a bigger picture that a good performance is an accumulated effort invested from all your days to weeks of training not depending on a singular session. Otherwise, everyone will just pump their only effort on one-weekend long run. So learn to scatter your training load across your weekly plan. My justification of not running beyond 3 hours for the long run is that say example if your training pace is 6min/km and that will translate to about 4 hours 12 min+ finishing time. A training run that is beyond >3 hours will have less physiological benefits but risk detrimental effect as the body is more fatigued and prone to injury, impair recovery time and will subsequently affect your training on following days. Visualize this like a snowball effect, the fatigue and micro-damage from a 4 hours long run will carry over until this accumulated impact crosses over your own body's threshold. This is where your tissues start to break down and you begin to experience pain => injury. This is a silent development because it didn't happen overnight but creep over a period of time, often overlooked and ignored. A clear example to explain the snowball effect is as shown:

Mon - easy run = low stress (+)

Tues - track intervals = high stress (+++)

Wed - easy run = low stress (+)

Thu - tempo run = high stress (++)

Fri - easy recovery = low stress (+)

Sat - easy run = low stress (+)

Sun - Long run >3hours++ (+++)

Mon - easy run = med stress (++)

Tues - Track intervals = high stress (++++)

Wed - easy run = low stress (++)

Above is an exaggerated case of 7 sessions per-week runner assuming all the parameters remain the same for 2 conservative weeks. Analyze carefully that despite the stress for the following Monday is low but it has accumulated additional score of two + and carry-over subsequently. from previous sessions especially from the excessive long run. You can imagine the magnitude of fatigue the runner's body is absorbing if this cycle continues until the score is big enough to break down the body before his/her key race.

So bottom line advice is to train by duration. If you have been training consistently and frequently, you are actually depositing healthy stress every day and snowball until your weekend long run and the cycle will carry on for the subsequent days, weeks and months. So it is natural to feel you are not able to hit your race pace due to the accumulated fatigue and this is where tapering works the best allowing the body to recover and peak. Hence most elite runners typically run portion of their long run distance at MP. The renowned Brook's Hanson Project team runs only 24-26km at MP during training with tired legs to mimic the late stage of the marathon. The Kenyan has a famous long run method called "Progressive Long Run" where the initial pace is slow and gradually the pace will pick up until it reaches their goal pace towards the latter distance. In summary, very few of the elites will run super long distance for their long runs. Classic example is we only read in articles that the elites can run 42km for their long run but what we don't see is actually they run less or close to 3 hours due to a faster pace. Our average body can store carbs that can last up to 3 hours and that explains why most elite runners will not run beyond that duration for training. For amateur runners to run the same distance but >3 hours training run will experience struggles like hitting the "wall" (depletion of carbs) from this stage onwards. Most top-level coaches advocate long run for marathon training should be close to 3 hours or less regardless your level. A 7min/km pace runners will definitely question that at max 3 hours he/she merely covered half of a marathon distance. However, they forget that if assuming they're training frequently and consistently, they are already training with some fatigue loads to begin with. That is the kind of method we want to trick the brain that at the start of a long run we are already feeling the second half of race without actually running the entire distance. Under-train is better off than you over-train (higher risk of injuries and burnout), so better to save your energy to "PB" on race day than training.

So as for me, below is a sample of last week training program to load some fatigue built from all time invested from the runs and supplementary (in yellow) until AHM (in red) on Sunday. It's a deliberate method to simulate the latter half marathon without actually running a full distance. What denies anyone a PB in a marathon is not how fast they can run but how long they can delay the onset of fatigue. Running 6min/km for the first 10k for a marathon can be a comfortably cruising effort but running the same pace for the last 10k will require twofold or threefold effort due to a tired body. As a result of fatigue, cadence and stride will drop while breathing rate and heart rate increase just to hold on to that goal pace. The better you can delay the onset of this physiological phenomenon the better the chance of a PB. Practice the simulation will gear the body better both mentally and physically for the incoming challenge. My advice for this method is to do it closer to your race (I planned mine 3 weeks before) where the body is stronger from the build-up phase of training and hence is able to cope such a long demanding simulation workout.

This is a big topic to write and apology if it's too long to digest. Take your time to read and hopefully you can pick up some good insights and experiment in your own way. Do like this article if you find them useful, thanks for reading. Below is a small entertainment I mashed up with a short 10 sec clip filmed by friend Ben Koh at around 17 km mark of me running with my trainee Ivan Eng both with Tartherzeal 5 during the AHM race at 4min/km pace. Signing off at 1233am off to bed now zzzZZ #backkickers