Reposted from 2014: My first sub3 #breaking3

Before I move on to my next phase of working life I like to share this to all amateur runners who are within the range not to give up this sub3 dream or aka as the ‘holy grail’ of marathon. Akin to how the world class trying to go under 2:10hr no one will tell you it will be easy. The path WILL BE full of up & down, plenty of struggles & disappointment. That is also why success will be sweeter and pride is re-established. I have completed abt or less than 10 marathons (incl 2 DNF) under my belt and to be able to achieve my new result is my personal pride which I like to share.

Introductory about my background:

I joined Safra Running Club in 2006 as a recreational jogger looking to keep fit & keep myself occupied. I was not even a regular member until I realised there were many fast mature senior runners who kicked my ass easily. Only when ego was smashed then I wanted to be as good as them. Week after week I would chase them even smelling their dust from a distance along the PCN or hills. Weeks turned into months where I began to narrow the gap albeit still no where near their standard. I never gave up although it was embarrassing honestly, how could a young chap got kicked by… From months to more months later I was already on par with some of them. I could still remembered seniors like Peng Joe, Ah Tang, Choong, Eric Tan & Eric Kao were showing me the rope. Mileages were really low back then running 2-3x a wk. With my body not conditioned well enough I ended up with a very very very chronic bad plantar heel pain (fasciitis) in 2008. I struggled the entire 1 year with conservative treatment with my physio and sport physician. Later I even had a corticosteroid injection for quick fixed and I resumed training but alas the injury got worsen until walking was affected. It was a bad mistake as steroid merely masked the pain receptors to promote self healing during at rest which apparently I abused the usage. Luckily my physician suggested me to go for ESWT (shockwave) treatment as the last resort and 2 sessions I managed to recover. During the rehabilitation period I only spent 2-3months running in the pool until I gained enough strength to do weight bearing running. That period was also my graduation from Sports Education degree by Monash Uni. I was thinking with the knowledge why not I apply the physiological theory to myself, coach myself. Marathon wasn’t on my head coz it’s the king of road distance and I wouldn’t want to hurt myself unnecessary yet.

The Rebirth

2009 was a rebirth where I slowly to understand the importance of sport science. Although training was more structured but still at a beginner’s stage. From that period I continued to run building raw fitness just like how Kenyan children do during their childhood. Nothing was serious and each setback was a learning curve gaining experience. I have no absolute competitive sport background in my youth days and signing up for each run event was an eye-opening session. I always admire athletes standing on the podium and question myself how did they do that? Luckily in Safra Running Club we have very experience fast runners who are willing to share their knowledge to us. Primarily senior veteran Gary Goh who has a PB of 2:47hr in his peak year. He shares a similar small built as me but he slaughtered all of us when the cadence starts to kick. Even though age is pulling him down but he still possess that wicked speed that put many youngsters to shame. Gary has been my inspirational idol ever since even today. He would share with me the methods they used to train back in the 90s where technology was minimum yet more S’poreans had ran under 3hr marathons than today. Although running has now become the most participated national sport but standard has fallen behind our history. Nevertheless I’m very blessed to have his guidance through this period of running.

The 2nd hero of mine is Wenlong, current chairman for MF. His name is very well known across all Safra clubs as the new benchmark to follow. His results have evolved him into a consistent sub3hr marathoner and the kind of pain endurance he possesses is remarkable, like the facial of renowned Jap marathoner Yuki. I remembered clearly many years ago I mentioned to him I wanted to run a sub3 for marathon and now reflecting that occasion I must be very naive and bold to have embarrassed myself in front of others. Fortunately he also guided me along the way and shared with me his training ideology.

Secret to Sub3hr

Disclaimer I bear no responsibility for all these infor but just my personal take and read at your own risk. Certain content can be debatable which I agree for my suggestions may not be applicable to anyone. The objective is to share and for you to tweak and adapt. Finally I would like to see more S’poreans to take marathon seriously and more to go under3hrs or faster in coming years to SEA game. Age is definitely not on my side and at most 2-3 yrs max of improvement before age will slow me down. How I wish I’m 10yrs younger where I can have a shot for something big… But the summary is it is DOABLE even for layman like myself & the Q is how much do you want it. The secret is there is no secret but plenty of hard work & sacrifices. The opportunity came at a timing where I left my job to train for this marathon FT for 3 months all self coached & self paid. It’s not a cheap process (read below under recovery\ nutrition) or easy holiday run but working towards a specific goal. There is no shortcut to success if you want to excel in endurance sport. After watching a marathon documentary “Running to the limits” abt an avg Brit filming himself FT for 2 years to train fr a noob to someone who qualify for London Olympics I just got inspired again. Mine is just a minor scale of his work and being sport-edu trained I want to feel what is it like to be a FT athlete even just a brief period. Training for marathon is a different discipline compare with 5k or 10k even though all are running. It is the king of road distance where you want to find that ‘sweet spot’ to delay the onset of bonking (depletion of GLU) aka ‘hitting the wall’. I have no talents in running for anyone can beat me in short distances. Hence I need to find other ways to improve as marathon training is a multi-facet package. Only a holistic training method comes tgr so that peak performance can be unleashed on race day. Training for sub3 or sub4 is no different except in magnitude. Perceived effort for both grp is the same just that the faster runner will clock more dist/vol than the slower for the same duration (I rather the slower runner to skew toward time-base training than dist). I will not specifically spell out what are my workouts but I will generally share so that all readers have a better understanding in tweaking your program.

1) Mantra “Train to run not run to train”: Many beginners love to clock huge amount of mileages thinking it will improve them. Yes no doubt volume plays an important role in improving cardiovascular fitness for aerobic activity but with a less condition body strength you are risking potential injury. Running is a high impact sport where each pound = 2-3x of your body wt. Strong muscles & ligaments & elastic tendons (esp. Achilles) work like the pillars and cables of a house. Weakening of these supporting mechanism will result in a collapsed building.

2) Time vs dist. With the advancement of technologies these days we are obsessed with numbers even myself guiltily. Certain workouts are best to train by time while certain are with GPS and certain just to run by feel. Learn to be flexible and adopt whichever is most suitable to you. Think out of the box.

3) Mantra “Run slow to run fast”. I learn this from the Kenyans at 1 occasion. 2 elite Kenyan women were slowly jogging while I was doing my long run. Bumping into them they were very kind to share with me that specific quality workouts should be 100% effort but when easy means really easy for easy relax running cost less energy for rapid recovery. There should not be a session of in between intensity. It is quite frustrating when I often tell runners who ran with me at Tampines recovery back should be ez & relax but they tend to run faster for ez. Meaning they have not gave their best during the quality session earlier. However I can understand becoz it happens to me before until I grab the concept through experimenting.

4) Recovery: 3 impt factors to rapid recover from hard sessions are A) Massage B) sleep C) nutrition. Massage is optional to individual, some of my friends running at highest level don’t while some do. So you need to experiment if it’s really physiological beneficial to your body. For me I was lucky to have regular myofascial release by Trainer Kevin Tan who is a certified sport masseur. I know the weakness and tightness of my muscular tissues but at times I do find it amusing that he is more familiar of my body than myself.

Quality sleep is very important esp training at high level. That window of shutting down allows the body to repair naturally by releasing hormones like GH. Even with shortage of night sleep I think noon nap works well to recharge for 2nd evening session although this is very unlikely for working class (reason why I want to train FT as to have full control of my program).

Lastly nutrition is a sensitive topic for I do generally watch my food intake but I”m not the very meticulous type that count calories. I believe that since I’m a 1.3cc korea car that has to compete against the European or Jap bigger tank cars the other way is to use better V-power fuel than them. That is where cost factor comes in and as I don’t smoke or drink but most bulk of my saving goes into cooking my meals & shoes. Healthier food = more expenses but better fuel. Keeping the weight at optimal range is vital for marathoners too as a lighter mass may generate lighter pounding & more energy-efficiency than a heavier runner in long distance.

5) Injury prevention: My advices to runners be it healthy or injured are to rotate terrains & shoes if possible. Some skeptics may question me of hidden agenda of selling more shoes (I used to work for a footwear company). If you understand the concept that wearing the same type of shoes even different brands (type i refer to same pitch height or aka ‘drop’ angle) you are consistently stressing the body in the same angle & alignment all the time. Rotate shoe of different types help to relief the load pattern. I’m no big believer in pure barefoot running or 1 particular type of foot strike pattern but believe at a given speed your body will land on the most optimal strike pattern (provided you’re not injured). Unless you’re injured then perhaps changing strike pattern may be an option to consider for different strike landing will load the body different. "If nothing is broken don't fix it", continues what works for you. However if need be than pls be cautious & be gradual during the transition as it’s the most vulnerable phase of getting a new injury. Learning a different foot strike is like learning a new swim stroke a new set of skill. There is absolutely no such thing as injury-free running technique, running is impact sport and it’s pure physics science. But you can manipulate load by mixing terrains, running on gravel or firm dirt or grass instead of pounding on concrete or tarmac all the time.

Limit the no. of hard quality sessions per wk. For hard run stresses the body immune system the most and usually take 24-48hrs or more to recover for the next hard. Marathon is an aerobic endurance activity so majority of the vol should target aerobic zone. I made a very bad move in 2013 while training for Gold Coast Airport Marathon. My build-up was good after coming back from Xiamen Marathon earlier with a 3:05 (missing out BQ by sec). 1st time I ramped up my vol and felt manageable but was still keeping to only 2 hard a wk. However there were sessions where moderate runs end up a hard becoz some of my running mates increased their pace. Ego was challenged so I decided to take them on resulting in repercussion effect. My body didn’t have enough time to recover for follow day session and chronic stress was accumulated over time especially at higher vol. Just only 2wks from GCAM I kept falling sick and resting HR was very high. Even my local GP couldn’t diagnose my illness and I rmbr clearly I explained to her in details and I might be suffering from URTI and over-train syndrome. Ironically she admitted I knew more than her in sport medicine. I went for all sort of tests, iron deficiency & RBC count and ECG and nothing was diagnosed. I took a gamble to fly to GC and attempted to run on race day but I just bonked at ard 20k where my body refused to run. My morning resting HR was spiked high beyond 48bpm vs my usual resting 39-40bpm. It was a failed gamble and I returned to Sg with huge disappointment for the entire build up was wasted becoz I crossed the body’s limit and ‘ego’ was the culprit. Took me months before I slowly regained back basic fitness by doing other non-running related like swimming cycling & hiking. I don’t usually encourage one to push beyond what your body can cope but once you did it like me, the plus side is you know where is the line to hold back. Heavy cost but good learning curve.

6) Training Group: In the past I did most of my training alone because I couldn’t find anyone to train with. Hence progression is slower when there is less stimulus. However lately I started to run with a small grp of champions who gave me a new life. Mix with positive people and you will be positive. We have a flying doctor, staircase champion, MF dragon & Flexi-wee that each has competed at highest level. Once a wk or twice we create workouts to help each other when certain event is approaching. When someone in the grp performs well and the rest of us just got more motivated. They live and breath running and we always share training methods and news regularly. I’m suggesting that it is important to find grp that you can benefit in improving tgr for the perceived effort is much easier than doing alone. You gain group support physically, psychologically and as well as socially too. I’m very proud standing with each of them not only for what they have achieved but as close buddies.

There are many running groups in Sg like SAFRA Running Club (Jurong, MF, Yishun, Toa Payoh & Tamp), Mileage team, SICK, Team Runfanatics, TeamFatbird, F1, Flexi-fitness, FWCC, MR25, Running Dept, Jurong Lake, Punggol etc find a suitable group and learn from their experience runners. If you are into performance then my personal advice is to be consistent sticking with 1 group instead of hopping so that your progress can be monitored. If not is to engage a coach who can provide more quality time to structure a customized program to enhance your growth. Another advise is if you want to excel then it is good to cast your ego aside and listen to constructive feedback. In life each person may not have the same opinion regards to the same matter so sometimes a different perspective offers another alternative so don't be persistent if you are frustrated struggling to improve at a level. Some of us may think we have hit the stage of plateau but honestly we are not even the class of world elites so the consolation is that we still have more potential to shred those minutes than them. Amateur runners like us yet to hit the principle of Diminishing return so soon, just need to find another new key to unlock the door.

A glass that is half filled or half empty?

7) Training Program:

With the advancement of technologies like internet and availability of many running magazines information can be obtained very easily. Plenty of training program can be downloaded that claims to blah blah blah. There are also many training books with different school of thoughts like Lydiard vs Jack Daniel vs Brad Hudson vs Kevin Hanson... etc (I will not go indepth). Ultimately all these information is just tools for runners to peruse, experiment and adapt, not copy. There will never be 1 template that works for everyone. One runner I come across is obsessed with every single detail offered from 1 particular book and follow blindly even when feeling unwell. Even though the author didn't mention about dynamism we ought to have common sense and not to get hurt in the process of learning. We mustn't ignore that n=1, each person absorb training load differently and sometimes our performance can be affected by non-running related stress. Work or family stresses can affect how you perform during key session and being human we ought to be flexible and dynamic. We want to have healthy stress to stimulus performance but not negative stress (unnecessary increase of cortisol hormone). On day where you cannot perform a specific workout remind yourself it is 100% ok to swoop your hard session to something less taxing but more aerobic as a form of stress reliever. Don't snowball the workout to the next day if you are training at high vol, missing out 1 Q session will not have much impact if you are training consistently. Rmbr your heart is the best HR monitor you can ever own so listen to it, the last thing you want is de-training effect if sick for too long.

8) Principle of specificity: If you want to excel in half to full marathon then you need to train like one. You cannot train like a swimmer and expect to excel in boxing. Likewise you cannot simply have the mindset of a sprinter and run more anaerobic sessions than aerobic when the latter is more far important determinant for marathons. However many runners mis-understand the concept of Long Slow Run (LSD). Generally long run is indeed need to be ran at a 'slower' pace but this 'slow' is at a specific speed & HR zone instead of smell flower pace if you want to gain optimal benefit from a performance perspective. Again this is in-depth topic which I will skip as long you understand my point.

Summary

Yup it has been draggy and long enough to write a book hence I shall stop here. Although there are more to it but the 8 pointers are generally sufficient enough to assist anyone of any level to upgrade their gear box. I may amend or add stuffs if i come across and hopefully my humble success will inspire more locals to excel in distance running. My initial goal was just to clock anything under3hr even 2:59:59 and I will stop running marathon so seriously anymore as it's really tough journey for a noob. However I tasted slightly sweeter result & feel my new door has just only opened, hungrier for better performance. I really wish to have another 3-6months of self coaching so I can train to a higher level but unfortunately I have to be realistic than this is Singapore and as a mid-age working class I need to work for survival.

This is also the cruel truth why running at top level here is very difficult compared with the 90s becoz now passion will not be enough to feed the stomach. However I hope the younger lads don’t give up because the govt has been supportive with study schemes and you have sport schools NSA and corporate sponsors etc to back you up. All the best folks to break3! #noregrets #sacrifices #safrarunningclub #selfcoaching #sub3hr #believedream #majullahsingapura #backkickers #selfcoach #runslowtorunfast #slowlybutsurely #ifpigcanfly #asicsrunningclubsg