Author: Ben Pulham

Ben Pulham is the founder of Coached, a personalised training programme that helps runners & triathletes optimise, track and enjoy their training.

Categories
Running

How To Race Your Best Marathon

Two male runners during a race

Watch Eliud Kipchoge run a marathon. Besides looking remarkably graceful as he glides over the ground, you’ll also notice, if you pay attention, that his pacing is incredibly consistent.

In most of the seventeen marathons he has run at the time of this writing, he has employed an even pace strategy and finished the races with minimal deviation between his 1km splits.

That’s part of the reason for his success. He runs with extreme self-control and maximises his fitness and results.

Contrast this with most amateur runners. They start too fast, get tired, and grovel to the finish line at a significantly slower pace than they started.

For proof of that, let’s look at the 2019 Singapore Marathon. Coached is the official training partner of this event, so when I reached out to Ironman (the event owner), requesting the marathon results from 2019, the last time the mass participation event happened before Covid, they kindly shared them with me.

We sliced the results in excel, and here’s what we found.

9,553 runners crossed over all timing mats to finish the marathon. Of those, 9,236 ran the second half marathon slower than their first half.

Here’s the kicker. On average, these 9,236 runners ran the second half marathon 39 minutes slower than the first half.

39 M I N U T E S.

That’s dramatically slower and proves that many runners leave a lot of performance on the race course through a lack of self-control and poor execution.

Don’t confuse ability with ambition. Your job is to maximise your fitness and achieve your best result on race day – not chase false dreams.

If you are in shape to run 5:55 /km for a 4:10 marathon, don’t start at 5:41 /km pace because your goal is to run a 4-hour marathon.

If you’re in 4:10 marathon shape, aren’t you better to run 4:10 than to chase a goal time that’s not realistic and instead run 4:30 (or slower)?

You must know your fitness and be realistic about your expectations. Test everything in training so that you start the race with a plan.

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How To Run Your Best Marathon

Running your best marathon is simple in theory.

  1. Know Your Fitness And Pace Properly
  2. Take In Enough Fuel To Power Your Pace

It’s more complicated in practice because you must control your ego and execute with patience.

Know Your Fitness And Pace Properly

This is a double-barrelled point, but you must know your zones before you can pace yourself properly.

You will run a marathon at zone 2 pace. Fitter, more conditioned runners will run towards the top of the pace zone. Less-conditioned runners will run towards the bottom of the zone.

For that to make sense, you must know what zone 2 pace is. That’s where testing comes in.

Testing during training is critical because it measures fitness and establishes zones for heart rate and pace/power. All Coached athletes run a lactate or FTPa test to determine their zones at various points throughout the season.

Once you know your zones, you can test “race pace” in training.

Don’t do your long runs at race pace. If you do that, you’re basically racing. Instead, I recommend testing it in moderately long runs in the form of long intervals or as a “fast finish” run where you run the second half at “race pace”.

Crosscheck your pace with your heart rate and perceived effort, and refine your pace as the weeks pass to determine precisely what race pace you believe you can hold.

On race day, your goal is to be consistent. Like Eliud, you want to run at the maximum pace you can sustain for the duration of the race.

Start at the pace you have tested in training. Use heart rate and perceived effort as secondary metrics to provide feedback and adjust your pace if needed.

Assuming you hold an even pace, your heart rate and perceived effort will increase over time. That happens in response to fatigue.

As you run, you sweat and lose electrolytes. Lactate is accumulated, and your muscles tire. Glycogen stores deplete, and your core temperature rises.

The stress your body is under at kilometre two is significantly less than at kilometre forty, even though the pace is the same.

As such, the early stages of a marathon should feel very comfortable. Please don’t blow it by letting your ego get in the way or being impatient.

Take In Enough Fuel To Power Your Pace

If you run out of gas, it doesn’t matter how big and efficient your engine is or how well you’ve refined your pace.

At best, you’ll underperform. At worse, you could end up in an ambulance.

To run a marathon, you must fuel appropriately and minimise your losses.

Think of fuel in two parts.

  1. Hydration
  2. Energy

To nail your hydration, you need to address the volume of sweat you lose (sweat rate) and sodium lost in your sweat.

Drink water to thirst to address volume, and take salt pills to address sodium loss. Alternatively, you can use a sugar-free electrolyte drink to address both.

Use Precision Fuel & Hydrations free hydration planner to determine what you need.

For energy, use gels. They’re the easiest way to onboard calories for most people. As a guideline, aim for around 1g of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight. Precision Fuel & Hydration also have a handy calculator for determining carbohydrate requirements.

Whatever you decide on, you must test this in training. Don’t try anything new on race day, or you may struggle with cramps, bloating, nausea, or running poorly, which would be a shame after months of preparation.

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There you have it—a straightforward way to execute your best marathon.

If you need help in preparation for your next race, we’d love to work with you. Sign up for a 14-day free trial today. We’ll arrange a 15-minute video coach call and set up a training plan for you.

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Pic: @runffwpu

Categories
Running

How To Fuel Your Next Marathon

Female runner getting a drink during a marathon

So, you have a marathon coming up, and you want to avoid messing it up and putting all your training to waste. That’s smart.

But how do you do that?

First, you must pace your race correctly to look after your muscles, and second, you must fuel properly to have the energy to fuel them.

We won’t get into pacing in this article, but we will tackle fuelling. Fuelling is made up of two primary areas.

  1. Energy
  2. Hydration

Let’s start with energy.

Energy

When you line up on race day, you have 1,500 – 2,000 kcal of carbohydrates stored in your muscles and liver as glycogen. As you race, these stores will deplete, so you must take in external energy sources to ensure they’re not entirely exhausted and make you hit the wall.  

As a guideline, you should consume approximately 30 – 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour, depending on how fast you are.

  • < 4 hour marathon: 60 – 90g
  • > 4 hour marathon: 30 – 60g

Alternatively, you can aim for around 1g of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight. Precision Fuel & Hydration has this handy little calculator you can use as a starting point for determining your energy needs.   

The main ways to consume energy during a race are as follows:

  1. Gels.
  2. Sports drinks.
  3. Solid foods.

For most races, we encourage you to use gels. Solid foods are hard to digest at race pace, and sports drinks often try to address too many things at once – energy, volume and electrolytes — the last two we’ll discuss in the hydration section of this article. 

Here are some examples of popular gels. My personal favourites are the two at the top:  

  • PF 30 Gel by Precision Hydration (120 kcal, 30g carbs, 0mg salt).
  • KODA (Banana) (117 kcal, 29.8g carbs, 36mg salt).
  • Maurten Gel 100 (100 kcal, 25g carbs, 85mg salt).
  • GU Roctane (100 kcal, 21g carbs, 125mg salt).
  • High 5 (91 kcal, 23g carbs, 50mg salt).
  • SIS GO (87 kcal, 22g carbs, 300mg salt).

Practise taking in energy during your long runs in the final weeks of your programme (combined with water or a sugar-free electrolyte drink) to find your sweet spot for carbohydrate tolerance.  

By race day, you should know how many carbohydrates you can comfortably stomach and how many gels you’ll need to consume to give you the desired feeling and energy you want throughout the race.

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Hydration

The second part of the fuelling puzzle is hydration. When it comes to hydration, there are a few things that you need to consider.  

  1. Sweat rate – how much sweat you lose per hour (volume).
  2. Sodium loss – how much sodium you lose in your sweat (electrolytes).
  3. The length and intensity of your race.

Knowing these numbers makes it easy to customise a hydration plan that will improve your training and recovery quality.  

As a side bonus, you’ll also lower your likelihood of suffering from muscle cramps.  

Sweat Rate

Sweat rate refers to the amount of sweat (volume) you lose per hour and varies from person to person, thanks to genetics. External factors such as temperature and humidity, clothing choices and acclimation to heat all play a role in determining how fast and how much your body sweats.

The simplest way to address sweat rate during a marathon is to drink water to thirst. Every athlete is different, but, as a rule of thumb, very few runners can comfortably drink much more than 750ml (24oz) per hour – especially when running hard – so unless experience tells you otherwise, it’s unlikely you’ll need to drink more than that. Listen to your body and drink water as needed.

Sodium Loss

A 2015 study found that athletes who adequately replaced the sodium lost in their sweat finished a middle-distance triathlon an average of 26-minutes faster than those who didn’t.  

That’s substantial!  

Based on data from Precision Fuel & Hydration, people lose between 200mg/l and 2,300mg/l of sodium, with the average person losing 949mg/l in their sweat.

The sodium you lose in sweat is genetic and changes little, if at all. Do a Sweat Test at our lab or visit Precision Hydration’s other test centres if you’re not in Singaopre to determine what you lose.  

If that’s not possible, take their free online sweat test or use the average sodium loss (949mg/l) to calculate how much sodium you should consume.

Maintaining the sodium levels in your blood is crucial to performing at your best when you’re working hard. Sodium helps you absorb and retain fluid, which keeps your blood volume up, reducing cardiovascular strain, fatigue, and potentially helping you avoid cramps.

Only drinking water when sweating over long periods dilutes your sodium levels, which can really impact your performance and could lead to hyponatremia.

Pulling It All Together

Once you have a rough plan of what you think you need to fuel your race adequately, it’s time to practice.  

Training, particularly during your long sessions in the final 8-weeks of your programme, is the most valuable time to practice your fuelling plan. Secondary races are also great opportunities to test your strategy in race conditions, where adrenaline and race intensity could throw a spanner in the works.  

You need to determine what works for you and what doesn’t to refine things as you move towards race day. I wish you well. One final reminder – never try anything new on race day.

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Categories
Running

Marathon Training: Best Recovery Practices

Man using a foam roller

Go out and run for two hours.

When you get back, you’ll be tired, tight, dehydrated, and low in glycogen. Take a five-minute break to have a snack, drink a glass of water, and then do it again. You’ll be even more exhausted and broken down.

That’s what training does; it breaks you down.

Training is only powerful when properly structured and balanced with adequate recovery.

Performance = training + recovery.

How To Recover Between Marathon Training Sessions

When most runners think about recovery, they think about sleep, nutrition, and modalities like massage, stretching, etc. These are all required, and we’ll get to them shortly, but so is setting up your training to maximise your chances of recovery between sessions.

Let’s start there.

Structural Recovery (Training Periodisation)

Following a structured training plan is essential if you want to perform to your potential. Well-structured plans are suitable for your fitness level, progressive, and carefully balance load and recovery – session to session, week to week, and season to season.

Train By Time
In my experience, training by time rather than distance (especially during aerobic training) is an effective way to do the work while setting yourself up for recovery.

Time responds to various things like fatigue, weather, and terrain. Distance is fixed. 10km is 10km regardless of how you feel, headwinds or hills.

When you train by time and stress is greater (you run a hilly course, for example), you will cover less distance. When stress is lower, you cover more. That’s fine. It’s the work and consistency, not the distance, that matters.

Train At The Correct Intensities
Throughout your marathon preparation, you’ll need to mix aerobic and anaerobic training to condition your body for the demands of the event.

Many runners I meet do too much of their training at intensities that are generally too high. This is a big problem because it compromises recovery and limits your physiological response to training.

Knowing your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds and using training zones (or a percentage of threshold) is vital for improving fitness and recovering effectively between sessions.

It’s also beneficial to use a mix of heart rate and pace to guide your training. Train with heart rate as your guide for low-intensity training and pace or perceived effort for high-intensity training.

Cut Race Times, Not Corners.

Racing at your potential and enjoying training is easy when you’re following the right programme.

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Essential Recovery

With your training thoughtfully structured, the two essential things you should focus on outside of training are sleep and nutrition.

Sleep
Plenty of high-quality sleep helps your body repair and recover between sessions. Unfortunately, many athletes don’t place enough emphasis on sleep and will often sacrifice it in favour of training, work, or other commitments.

We all have twenty-four hours in a day. If you want to perform well in life and training, I encourage you to prioritise your sleep.

Nutrition
What you feed yourself matters, as does when you eat.

Minimally processed whole foods help to nourish your body with vitamins and minerals, keep inflammation levels low, and provide you with plenty of energy to fuel your training and racing.

Avoid foods that are energy-dense yet provide little nutritional value. White bread, pasta, cereal, and candy are all examples of those foods.

Instead, eat plenty of green leafy vegetables, some fruit, grass-fed meats, nuts, seeds, eggs, millet, and quinoa – real foods.

Supplementary Recovery

If you’re not getting enough sleep or are eating junk food, using the following recovery modalities is a bit like putting a bandaid over a gunshot wound. They won’t work very effectively.

If you are sleeping and eating as you should, the practices below could help accelerate your recovery and help you feel great in each training session.

Track Heart Rate Variability Or Resting Heart Rate
While not useful on their own, measuring your heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate can provide some valuable insight into how your body is recovering. When paired with subjective factors like muscle soreness, motivation to train, and mood, these metrics can help you decide whether to train as planned or ease off.

Stretching And Myofascial Release
Regular stretching, foam rolling, or using a massage gun daily will help reduce muscle soreness and keep your muscles supple and in good condition.

Massage
Regular massage helps to flush the byproducts produced during training from your body and can improve your mobility while keeping your muscles feeling good.

Compression
Compression socks and recovery boots may help to reduce muscle soreness and improve recovery by reducing swelling and improving circulation in your feet and legs.

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There are many other modalities that you can try, too, like contrast therapy, for instance. Before that, focus on structuring your training properly, sleeping plenty, and eating well.

Those are the things that will truly move the needle and enhance your recovery and performance.

If you’d like help structuring your training to optimise your recovery, why not try a 14-day free trial of Coached? We’ll set up a training plan for you and arrange a 15-minute coach call.

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Categories
Running

Why Strength Training Is Essential During Marathon Prep

Man doing push up

42.2 kilometres!

That’s a heck of a long run with tens of thousands of steps required to get you to the finish line.

You need strong muscles to take each of those steps efficiently and to produce maximum power and a high pace.

Strong muscles are more resistant to fatigue, and help to protect your joints from the impact of your foot repeatedly hitting the ground.

Unfortunately, many runners do not give strength training the respect it deserves in favour of more running. Runners like to run, but it’s often the things we don’t like that give us the best result and protect us from injury.

As a marathon runner, you must incorporate strength training into your weekly training plan.

Read on to learn why, and watch a video demonstrating some simple strength exercises you can start with.

Key Benefits Of Strength Training

Strength training comes in many forms, and there are several benefits.

1. Lean Body Mass

Muscle is metabolically more active than fat. That means you will burn more calories while at rest, resulting in a lower portion of excess body fat you must carry as you run. Eliud Kipchoge is the epitome of lean body mass in action. He is incredibly lean but equally strong in the muscle groups essential to his craft. He has an incredible power-to-weight ratio.

Having more muscular strength also allows you to put and transfer more power through the ground, resulting in a longer stride and a faster pace. Racing over hills? No problem; strong muscles carry you over hills with poise and delay the rate at which you fatigue.

2. Running Efficiency

A strong core, legs and butt contribute to greater stability and endurance, bolstering your form and enabling you to run more economically.

The less energy you waste on unnecessary movements such as excessive torso twisting, bouncing up and down, or running with a short stride length – often resulting in an excessively high and inefficient running cadence – the better.

More powerful muscles can improve your stride efficiency, whilst a strong core and upper body prevent your form from deteriorating and slowing you down as fatigue sets in.

3. Injury Prevention

Runners suffer a high rate of injury. That’s usually the result of structural (leg length discrepancies) and biomechanical imbalances (tight muscles working against weak muscles) or poor training structure. Often both.

Strength training helps make you a more resilient runner by correcting muscular imbalances.

 

Cut Race Times, Not Corners.

Racing at your potential and enjoying training is easy when you’re following the right programme.

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How To Do Strength Training

When you picture strength training, you may conjure up images of a jacked-up Arnold Schwarzenegger pumping iron in the gym. While that’s certainly one way to do it, it’s not what I am talking about here.

Like all training, the best results come from being specific and addressing the demands of your sport. In running, that means correcting muscle imbalances, increasing your power-to-weight ratio, and burning fat.

Strength training comes in many forms, such as weight training, resistance bands, hill running, and body weight (callisthenics) exercises. The methods you choose will depend on your background, goals, injury history, and current imbalances.

With our athletes, we use volume through frequency, running drills, and hill running in our programmes as a way to develop running-specific strength during runs. We also prescribe specific strength training exercises to build general strength and address muscle imbalances.

Here are five simple bodyweight exercises to get you started.

If you’d like help structuring your training, we’d love to work with you.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of our online coaching. We’ll set up a training plan for you and arrange a 15-minute Zoom Call to meet and discuss your goals and the plan.

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Categories
Running

4 Training Runs You Should Do To Prepare For Your Next Marathon

Man running by a lake

If you want to run a fast marathon and recover quickly afterwards, you must do a certain amount of preparation.

A marathon is a long way. While you could likely finish a marathon run tomorrow with some grit, you probably wouldn’t run to your potential, enjoy the experience, or recover quickly afterwards.

Training is the bridge to your goal.

To effectively prepare for a marathon, you must do a focused preparation of 12 – 16 weeks. The more experienced and fitter you are today, the shorter the timeline you can get away with.

Because a marathon is a long event that significantly stresses your bones, joints, muscles, and connective tissues, you must structure your training to prepare your body and mind for the distance.

I recommend marathoners run at least four days per week with one to two strength training sessions added for injury prevention and strength development.

Run 1: Long Run

As the name suggests, the long run is the longest weekly session. Depending on your ability and timeline, long runs will vary between 80 minutes early in the plan and up to 3 hours in your peak week.

Long runs help you to develop your endurance base. When run at low intensity, as they should be, long runs train your aerobic metabolism, increasing the number of mitochondria in your muscles and providing a place for fats and glucose to produce the energy needed for muscular contractions. The more mitochondria you produce, the better.

In short, these long runs are the bedrock of a marathon training programme.

Many runners concern themselves with the distance and pace of a long run, but I believe the time and heart rate are more beneficial in these runs.

Pace and distance are fixed outputs that don’t factor in external conditions like the terrain or conditions or how you feel. 10km is 10km whether you run it uphill or down, and 5:00 /km is 5:00 /km whether it’s hot or cold, windy or calm.

Time and heart rate help to balance the stress of training and the stress of life. When stress is low, your heart rate stays low and your pace high. When stress is high, you’ll see an elevation in heart rate and a slowing of pace. That’s fine.

Run 2: Speed Run

While the long run is all about the aerobic system, the speed run focuses on anaerobic development.

You best develop your anaerobic system using high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which comprises short, intense intervals followed by low-intensity recovery intervals.

The key to interval training is polarising your intensities. You must run the recovery intervals significantly slower than the work interval. Many runners make the mistake of running at a more moderate pace throughout their intervals, running slightly faster, then running slightly slower to recover.

That’s not what you should do, and this is why knowing your lactate threshold output (heart rate and pace) and using training zones is critical. Zones give you an objective way to define intensity.

Unlike the long run, where I recommend you train according to your heart rate, you should run the main set of a speed run according to pace or perceived effort.

While it’s easy to think that a speed run is all about the anaerobic system, there is still a significant aerobic component since warm-up, main set recovery, and cool-down is run at low intensity.

 

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Run 3: Tempo Run

A tempo run is run at or below your lactate threshold, the pace at which you produce the maximum amount of lactate that your body can clear from your muscles and bloodstream.

It’s the fastest pace you can run aerobically.

Run any quicker, and you’ll produce lactate faster than you can clear it. Your muscles will become acidic, and your pace will have to slow.

The primary benefit of tempo running is to raise your lactate threshold. Your lactate threshold pace is an excellent indicator of performance, so it’s something we strive to increase in all our athletes.

The faster you can run while clearing lactate, the quicker you will run.

Like the speed run, I recommend you run tempo runs by pace or perceived effort after warming up according to your heart rate.

You can run tempo runs in two ways. 1. As a sustained tempo run where you run 20 – 40 minutes at your tempo pace, or 2. as intervals where you may run 5 x 8 minutes at your tempo pace with a 90-second easy recovery jog between intervals.

Run 4: Recovery Run

As the name suggests, a recovery run promotes active recovery and helps to flush the body of byproducts produced during your weekly training session. Recovery runs should be run at low intensity, slower than your long run.

Run these runs according to your heart rate, regardless of the pace.

Other Performance Enhancers

Running Drills
Running drills should be practised by runners of all abilities. All elite runners practice drills, but few amateur runners I have met include them in their preparation. That’s a mistake.

Running drills have many benefits; you can easily incorporate them into your runs as part of your warm-up.

Run Over Hills
You can use hills in any run to make a session more challenging. Hills provide sport-specific resistance and, over time, make you a stronger, more fatigue-resistant runner.

We use hills during long, speed, and tempo runs in our programme depending on the athlete’s ability and where they are in the training cycle. If you’re well-conditioned, you can also run an easy recovery run over mild hills.

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Include these four runs while preparing for the next marathon, and you’ll be well on your way to running at your best.

If you need help structuring these runs within your week, why not try a 14-day free trial of Coached? We’ll set up a training plan for you and arrange a 15-minute coach call.

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Categories
Running

Training Zones: A Key To Your Marathon Success

Man running

I’ve been a professional endurance coach for just shy of fifteen years.

In that time, I’ve seen runners make all sorts of mistakes, from training structure to race execution; gear choices to lifestyle factors like poor sleep hygiene and a shitty diet.

Arguably, the most common mistake I see runners make has to do with training intensity. Specifically, how they gauge their effort and how hard they run in training.

At its core, running is a simple sport. All you need is a pair of shoes and some basic clothing. If you want to improve continually and run injury free, it’s far more complex.

Training zones are critical for all runners who want to improve and run injury free because they objectify intensity and provide guidance on how hard to run in each session.

We use five training zones at Coached.

Zone 1: Easy
Zone 2: Steady
Zone 3: Moderately Hard
Zone 4: Hard
Zone 5: Very Hard

The names of each zone represent their subjective feeling. Easy should feel easy, and hard should feel hard.

Zones one through three are aerobic zones, with the top of zone 3 representing your transition from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism. Zones four and five are anaerobic training zones.

When you run a marathon, over 99% of your energy comes from your aerobic metabolism. Even a one-mile race is around 80% aerobic.

To optimise your training quality, you need to know when you’re running aerobically and when you’re running anaerobically.

Far too many runners do their “easy” training too hard, running in a performance grey zone that’s too hard to train your aerobic system properly but too easy to prepare your anaerobic system properly. You must polarise your intensities.

This is where training zones are valuable.

Training zones are tagged to markers of metabolic activity like lactate, fuel utilisation, and VO2max. For this reason, you can feel confident that when you follow a plan and train in the correct zone, using the proper method, you are training optimally, improving your performance while keeping your injury risk low.

 

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How To Determine Training Zones

There are many formulas you can use to determine training zones. Whether they come from your device or an online source, formulas are rarely effective, and you should avoid them in favour of testing.

Testing is objective and specific to you as an individual.

Lab testing is the gold standard for establishing training zones, and we encourage any athlete with access to a lab to take advantage of it.

A lactate test is one of the best investments you can make in your preparation and development as an athlete. Besides setting your training zones for heart rate and pace (or power), you’ll get insight into your physiology and current fitness level.

Field testing is an option if you don’t have access to a lab or don’t wish to invest your money. Field testing in the form of a functional threshold pace (FTPa) test provides a more reliable way than formulas to obtain your zones.

The problem with FTPa testing is that it’s incredibly challenging, which rules it out for some runners. It’s also just an approximation of your anaerobic threshold, so it’s not as accurate as lactate testing.

Training Zones In Practice

Once you determine your zones, you have the choice to do your training based on heart rate, pace, or perceived effort.

Each method has pros and cons, so I encourage you to use a mix of each.

Heart rate is an input that responds to various external factors, like weather, terrain, fatigue, and dehydration. When conditions are harsh, or your body is under stress, you must slow your pace to maintain your desired heart rate.

Pace is an output and doesn’t respond to these external factors. 4:00 /km is 4:00 /km regardless of whether you are tired, hot, or running uphill. As such, pace is best used carefully for high-intensity and race-specific training.

Comparing your heart rate and pace against how you feel over time can hone your perceived effort. Having a true intuitive sense of how hard you work usually develops over time and is observed in experienced athletes with years of training under their belts.

Developing this sense is critical for runners of all levels.

Using a mix of heart rate, pace, and perceived effort helps you balance life’s stress with the stress of training and minimises your injury risk.

When paired with training by time rather than distance, you set yourself up for consistency – the ultimate performance enhancer.

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If you need help structuring these runs within your week, why not try a 14-day free trial of Coached? We’ll set up a training plan for you and arrange a 15-minute coach call.

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Categories
Running

9 Mistakes Runners Make When Training For A Marathon

Women running

So, you’ve decided to run a marathon. That’s great.

The marathon is a demanding but satisfying distance to master, so you must get your preparation and race execution right.

To save you some pain and frustration, this article will share nine mistakes that runners regularly make when preparing for a marathon so that you can avoid them.

Mistake 1: Running Without A Plan

As Benjamin Franklin once said, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Running is a simple sport, but if you want to run well and remain injury free, there’s more complexity and a certain amount of planning you must do.

The sooner you realise this and apply some structure to your training and fuelling, the better. Your performances will improve, you’ll suffer fewer injuries, and you’ll enjoy running more.

A good plan is the bridge between your goal and your personal best.

Mistake 2: Doing 30k+ Long Runs Regardless Of The Time It Takes

So many runners think you must clock a certain percentage of the marathon distance in a long run. It’s not unusual to see runners doing 30k, 32k, or 36k runs, even if it takes four or five hours to complete.

This thinking is nonsense. 2h 45m is plenty, regardless of the distance covered.

The stride length is the main difference between a runner covering 35k in 2h 45min and one who covers just 21km. Good runners are more conditioned and, as a result, have a longer stride.

The number of steps between the two runners is not significantly different, and it’s the steps that put stress on your joints, muscles, and connective tissues.

Legendary running coach Jack Daniels expresses my thoughts on this well in this short video.

Mistake 3: Training Too Hard, Too Often

When you run a marathon, almost all of the energy required to run the distance comes from your aerobic metabolism. Unfortunately, too many runners train at a pace that is too hard to prepare this vital system properly and show up on race day ill-prepared.

Mistake 4: Not Using Training Zones

You need training zones to know whether you’re running aerobically or anaerobically.

Training zones are tagged to markers of metabolic activity like lactate, fuel utilisation, and VO2max. For this reason, you can feel confident that when you follow a plan and train in the correct zone, you are training optimally, improving your performance while keeping your injury risk low.

I recommend you do your aerobic runs to heart rate and your anaerobic runs to pace.

Mistake 5: Not Doing Any Strength Training

Runners suffer a high rate of injury. It’s not surprising because running is a very high-impact sport that stresses the joints, bones, muscles, and connective tissues.

What is surprising is that most runners neglect strength training in their programme. In my view, strength training for runners is non-negotiable.

Strength training helps to correct the biomechanical imbalances that lead to many running injuries and conditions your body to be more resilient to fatigue.

Mistake 6: Not Doing Any Secondary Races

Racing is a skill; like any skill, you must practice if you want to improve. Well-timed and suitable secondary races are excellent preparation for your A-Race.

Secondary races give you feedback about your current fitness level and provide a place to practice your pacing skill and fuelling under race conditions. These races allow you to test your gear choices and make mistakes when the stakes are low.

 

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Mistake 7: Choosing Secondary Races That Are Not Complimentary

If you choose the wrong secondary races or do them at the wrong time, these races can do more harm than good.

For a marathon, a half marathon on similar terrain and conditions, four to six weeks before your marathon is best.  

Mistake 8: Last-Minute Equipment And Fuel Changes

Any experienced runner will tell you that you should never try anything new on race day.

Purchase all new gear and test it weeks in advance. Chafing, blisters, pain, and poor performance are the side effects of last-minute gear changes.

Likewise, start experimenting and testing your nutritional strategy early to avoid bloating, nausea, cramps, and poor performance on race day.

It’s a good idea to research and find out what is used on course in your race and practice with those brands.

Mistake 9: Thinking You Can Eat Whatever You Want

You’re mistaken if you’re a runner who thinks they can eat whatever they want. You may look lean, but your body is likely riddled with inflammation under the hood.

Inflammation is a serious roadblock to good health and will slow your recovery and limit your performance.

Eat wisely.

Choose minimally processed whole foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals. Avoid refined carbohydrates that spike blood sugar and raise insulin levels.

PB Your Next Marathon

Avoid these nine mistakes, and you’re well on your way to a personal best in your next marathon.

We’d love to work with you if you need help preparing for your next race.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of our online coaching. We’ll set up a training plan for you and arrange a 15-minute Zoom Call to meet and discuss your goals and the plan.

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Categories
Running

How To PB Your Next Marathon

Man running

Coached were the official coaches the last time the Singapore Marathon happened en-mass in 2019.

I’m happy to announce that as the Singapore Marathon returns in 2022, we are again the official coaches of the event and will support all runners in preparation for the race.

We have several initiatives planned, the first being this blog series – How To PB Your Next Marathon.

Between now and race day, we’ll share an article every two weeks covering topics that will help you prepare for and ace your race.

While we’ve titled it How To PB Your Next Marathon, most of the advice shared in this series applies to all distances – 5k to marathon.

Let’s get started …

How To Structure Your Training

Structure is not a sexy topic, but it’s a darn right necessity if you want to remain injury-free and run at your best.

The sooner you realise this and apply some structure to your training, the better.

The Timeline

A discussion about structure wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t first address the time required to prepare for your race.

Having sufficient time to prepare is critical because it means that your training can be progressive, gradually building in difficulty as your body adapts and fitness improves. Progression limits your risk of injury and allows you to bring your fitness to a peak on a specific day.

Here are the timelines required to perform in various distances.

Marathon: 16 – 20 weeks
Half Marathon: 12 – 16 weeks
10k: 8 – 12 weeks
5k: 8 weeks

 

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The Three Levers

There are three levers that an athlete or coach can pull to change a training outcome. Their use will depend on each athlete’s unique characteristics and schedule.

Frequency

Frequency refers to the number of training sessions you complete each week.

We’ve all heard that practice makes perfect, and running is no different. The more your run – with the caveat that you must recover sufficiently to absorb the work – the better you will do.

Here are some recommended frequency guidelines for various distances.

Marathon: 4+ runs
Half Marathon: 4+ runs
10k: 3+ runs
5k: 2+ runs

I’d also recommend you include one to two weekly strength training sessions for injury prevention and strength development.

Volume

Volume refers to the duration or distance you run in a session, week, or training cycle.

A high volume is best achieved through a high frequency, not from long single runs, and I recommend running based on duration rather than by distance – especially for the long runs.

Here are some recommended long run volume guidelines for various distances. Begin your preparation with the lowest volume and gradually progress as each week passes. Your longest run should happen three to four weeks before your race, and your volume should taper down from there.

Marathon: 01:30 – 3:00 hours
Half Marathon: 01:00 – 02:15 hours
10k: 00:45 – 01:45 hours
5k: 00:20 – 01:00 hours

Intensity

Intensity refers to how hard you run in each session. To bring yourself to peak fitness, you must train your aerobic and anaerobic systems by running at various intensities throughout your preparation.

Enter training zones.

Training zones objectify intensity and provide more guidance on how hard to run in each session.

We use five training zones at Coached.

Zone 1: Easy
Zone 2: Steady
Zone 3: Moderately Hard
Zone 4: Hard
Zone 5: Very Hard

The names of each zone represent their subjective feeling. Easy should feel easy, and hard should feel hard.

Unfortunately, my experience has shown that many runners – particularly beginner and intermediate runners – have a disconnect between how hard they feel they’re working and how hard they’re actually working.

More often than not, this leads to running at a pace that is too fast to properly train your aerobic system but too slow to train your anaerobic system. This moderate pace is a performance black hole that you must avoid.

Training zones are tagged to markers of metabolic activity. Determining zones for heart rate and pace will make your training more precise and give you a specific guideline for how easy or hard to run in each session.

Use heart rate to guide low-intensity training and pace for high-intensity interval training.

How do you determine training zones?

While your device will likely suggest formula-generated training zones, the best way to establish your zones is through testing. You can keep this simple and complete a FTPa field test or visit a lab for a lactate test, the gold standard for determining zones.

Aim to complete around 80% of your training in Zones 1 and 2, with the remaining time in Zones 3, 4 and 5.

A sample week may look like this:

Monday: Strength Training
Tuesday: Speed Run
Wednesday: Recovery Run
Thursday: Tempo Run
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Long Run
Sunday: Rest

Training Doesn’t Exist In A Vacuum

Now that you understand how to structure your training, you must realise training doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You spend less than three hours training each day, leaving twenty-one or more hours to ruin your progress.

Poor sleep, a shitty diet, and additional haphazard cross-training can all have disastrous effects on the best-laid plans. Pay attention; these details matter too.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll dive into more detail on these subjects.

We’d love to work with you if you need help preparing for your next race.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial of our online coaching. We’ll set up a training plan for you and arrange a 15-minute Zoom Call to meet and discuss your goals and the plan.

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Categories
Inside Coached

Coached Race 6.0 – The Final One?

Runners at the start of Coached Race 6.0.

Last weekend we hosted our sixth edition of Coached Race. These races are small, no-frills events for athletes we coach that we started in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Since the start, we’ve hosted various distances from 10k to marathon. We even offered a trail run.

With easing restrictions and more races joining the calendar in Singapore and around the world, I can’t help but wonder if this one was our last race. I hope so.

For this edition of our race, we offered two distances – 10km and a half marathon – run around Marina Bay.

The post-race celebration happened via Zoom, where we shared the results and awarded the prizes via a lucky draw kindly sponsored by our friends at Hydragun, nötter, The Foot Practice), and Under Armour.

Here’s how the race went …

The Results

Post-race, we always ask our athletes to answer a short survey to share their results and experience. I’ve plucked out some non-personal results, and here they are.

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Most of our runners chose to run the 10km, with a respectable number in the half marathon. The half marathon numbers were higher in the weeks leading in; however, several athletes had to pull out due to illness or changes in travel schedules.

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With significantly more important races now on the calendar, this race was a “for shits and giggles” event for most athletes. 41.4% still wanted to run well and took a short taper leading into the run. For a few, this was an A-Race.

For most, this race was a B or C-race, meaning it was a secondary priority and of minimal importance. Most runners either trained through the event or had a short taper to freshen up a little.

I am happy that the few runners who had this as an A-Race and did a full taper all managed to run a personal best time. The rest ran strong.

In this case, on a scale of 1 = gutted to 5 = stoked, most of our runners were pretty satisfied with their performance.

Racing is a skill, and like any skill, you must practice it to improve your ability. Overall, our team executed pretty well across the board. The pre-race meal still seems to be the aspect that most people struggle with so we’ll continue to work on that with the team.

What’s Next?

Time will tell. If races continue to come back, there will be no need for our little events, and that’s obviously the hope.

We have enjoyed hosting these events and getting to know our athletes better so maybe we’ll do one each year just for fun. Who knows?

If you’re keen to train and race with us, sign up for a 14-day free trial and see if we’re a good fit for you.

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Coached Race 6.0. A Few Pics

Thanks to everyone who participated.
Categories
Triathlon

Lessons From SuperLeague Triathlon And The Best Triathletes In The World

Nicholas Rachmadi racing SuperLeague triathlon

There’s no substitute for doing. You can read books, watch YouTube videos, and talk to friends, but nothing hits the spot quite like doing the thing.

Recently, an athlete we coach, Nicholas Rachmadi, had the opportunity to line up against his heroes in the SuperLeague Arena Games. To do his thing at the highest level of the sport.

It was a crash course in excellence and how to race triathlon.

Nic was one of five Singaporean triathletes given a wild card to participate.

As a medical student with no desire to turn pro, this level of racing was significantly higher than anything he’s ever done before and was a fantastic opportunity to learn and hone his craft.

In his words, here’s what he learned …

Swim

The swim is FAST, and drafting matters. Stick tight in the swim pack because once they’re gone, they’re really gone.

During the heats, I didn’t stick tight enough to the hips of other athletes, and I found it incredibly difficult to bridge back to the pack, especially given that these guys are mostly front pack swimmers in the World Triathlon Series (WTS).

The next day during the Repechage (semi-finals), I focused on drafting and at the end of the swim, I was on the feet of Bence Bicsak, a Hungarian Triathlete who finished 7th at the Olympics and won third at the recent WTS Abu Dhabi race.

I also realised it’s critical to hold your line (they’ll try and move you to get the feet you’re on) and be aggressive around the turning buoys so you don’t drop places.

Cut Race Times, Not Corners.

Racing at your potential and enjoying training is easy when you’re following the right programme.

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Bike

A high cadence is essential. I noticed that most of my competitors rode a high cadence and could do that when fatigued. My cadence dropped as I became tired, and I lost efficiency, power, and time to the leaders.

Race specificity matters. If you want to ride fast on a trainer, some practice on a trainer will undoubtedly benefit you.

Run

Like the ride, I noticed my cadence dropped as I fatigued, and I had a harder time turning the treadmill over.

I had not run much on a self-propelled treadmill, so some dedicated training on one would have been a great benefit.

Transition

Transition is critical in such a short race at this level. The guys accelerated the second our feet hit the ground after the swim. I lost a surprising amount of time just from the swim exit to the bike mount.

Shoes were carefully attached to the bikes, and shoe straps were either out of the buckle and hidden away or carefully placed for quick access.

Some athletes had multiple running shoes for smooth transitions between races. You may not win the race in transition, but you can certainly lose it.

Final Thoughts

Stop thinking and act! It’s essential to get out of your comfort zone. I considered not participating because I felt I was not good enough to race with these guys. I did get beaten, but I was proud of my effort, and it showed me I could line up against the best in the world.

Details matter. Observing the other athletes allowed me to see the level of detail the pros put into their craft. They’re there to earn a living, and it shows.

Go with the flow. I couldn’t warm up on the bike because I didn’t have the right tool to attach my bike to the trainer. Obviously, I should have had the right tool (see details matter), but I didn’t and had to adjust my warm-up routine.

Thank you, SuperLeague and Triathlon Singapore, for the opportunity to race.

Pics: SuperLeague Triathlon

Categories
Running Triathlon

What Is A Tempo Run And How Do You Do It?

Male runner during a tempo run

I’ve done a lot of tempo running over the years.

I did them as a youngster when I was running cross country. I ran them in my teens during my triathlon prep, and I did them in my build-up for the Olympic triathlon trials in 2007.

I continue to run them regularly as an old-timer. They’ve been a staple for more than half my life.

What Is A Tempo Run?

A tempo run is run at or below your lactate threshold, the pace at which you’re producing the maximum amount of lactate that your body can clear from your muscles and bloodstream.

It’s the fastest pace you can run aerobically.

Run any quicker, and you’ll produce lactate faster than you’re able to clear it. Your muscles will become acidic, and your pace will have to slow.

Tempo runs are frequently defined in three ways.

1. A Comfortably Hard Effort. An effort where you are running fast but can still speak in short sentences. It’s a 5 – 6 out of 10 effort, and if you run just a little faster, it feels significantly harder because you cross your lactate threshold.

2. The Pace You Can Run For An Hour. Another guideline for tempo effort is the pace you can sustain for an hour. For some, that is their 10k pace. For me, it’s a little faster, and for some, it’ll be slower.

3. By Percentage Of Threshold Heart Rate Or Pace. If you train by heart rate or according to pace, using a percentage of threshold is the most accurate way to ensure you’re running at the right tempo effort. For heart rate, you’re looking to run at 96 – 100% of your threshold heart rate. For pace, you’re aiming for 100% – 104% of your threshold pace.

At Coached, we use testing (lactate or FTPa) to determine an athlete’s lactate threshold and calculate training zones. Tempo runs are then run Moderately Hard (zone 3), and athletes can use a mix of heart rate, pace or perceived effort for their sessions.

Cut Race Times, Not Corners.

Racing at your potential and enjoying training is easy when you’re following the right programme.

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Benefits Of Tempo Runs

The primary benefit of tempo running is to raise your lactate threshold. Your lactate threshold pace is an excellent indicator of performance, so it’s something we strive to increase in all our athletes.

The faster you can run while clearing lactate, the quicker you will run.

If your threshold pace is 4:00 /km, running tempo can help drop that to 3:50 and beyond. We frequently see athletes increase their lactate threshold by more than 1 km/h and have seen athletes increase their threshold by over 5 km/h after a few years of structured training.

Tempo running also boosts your mental capacity to hold those faster paces for a longer time. If you want to perform to your potential, a strong mind is just as important as optimal physical conditioning.

Types Of Tempo Runs

1. Traditional Tempo. A traditional tempo run is run without a break. After a warm-up of, say, 20 minutes of easy running, you go straight into your tempo effort, where you run 20 – 40 minutes at your tempo pace, heart rate, or a comfortably hard effort. Follow the tempo with an easy cool-down jog.

2. Tempo Intervals. You run tempo intervals at the same pace, heart rate, or effort as a traditional tempo run. The difference lies in the way you run the session.

While a traditional tempo run is a long constant effort, tempo intervals break the tempo run into shorter intervals with an easy recovery jog between each interval. By breaking the tempo run into intervals, you can run more total time at tempo effort.

After a warm-up of 20 minutes of easy running, you go straight into your tempo intervals, where you run, say, 5 x 8 minutes at your tempo pace, heart rate or effort, with a 90-second easy recovery jog between intervals. Follow the tempo intervals with an easy jog to cool down.

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As you can see, tempo running is a fantastic addition to your training. Most runners should do a tempo run every 1-2 weeks during a structured season. Many Coached athletes run a tempo run in most weeks of their season.

It’s a fundamental and effective session.

If you’d like help with you training, why not get Coached? Try our online coaching free for 14-days.

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