The idea was brought up to me by a friend few days back. He was asking me to pace him to complete a road marathon, in which we both participate, in less than 5 hours. My first replied was “Sure bro”. And then I did some quick math and figured out some now numbers. Eventually I edited my reply “It’s achievable if you maintain pace 7:00 throughout. It means that you must be running comfortably at pace 7:00 with HR of zone 2 or 3 (135 – 145 BPM). And then we could plan pace 6:00 – 6:30 for some part then make pace 7:00 for recovery”. He smiled and said “Together we can do it bro” and I smiled back to him.
This morning, I tested the feasibility via a long run of half marathon distance 21.2 km with constant pace of 7:07, it took me 2:29 hours to complete. It was a quite comfortable run for me and the most difficult part is to resist the temptation of speeding up in the first 10 km. HR is another subject that it was my weakness. It was super moderate in first 10 km, shooting up in next 5 km and then was high (170) in last 5 km regardless of the easy pace (Refer to table 1 below for the pace and HR in details). My guess is that my body conditioning level is not yet being fit enough to sustain the pace 6:30 – 7:00 pace for such long time. That is why the HR keep jumping up quite high at the end of the run.
I have a great feeling that I could eventually tame it to be 135-145 bpm with this pace, in one month time. Yeah. The race is at 10 December 2018, and I must be ready for it. So, I decided to make this dream be reality but developing a game plan for it.
What is the game plan to run a 42.25 km in sub 5 hours, you may be curious ? Not mentioning that it will happen in 6 weeks :D.
Here it is.
Game plan
- Fuels
- Have big breakfast with 2,000 Calories (egg + bread + coffee)
- Fuel every 1 hour with energy gel and bring 2 bottles: 1 for water and 1 for sport drink
- Paces
- Regulate pace based on HR and time. For example, maintain HR at max 160 through out. Except for last 10 km or so it’s acceptable to have HR at 170 but the pace should be moderate.
- I could image it will be like
- 0 – 10 km: HR 150, pace 6:00 (60 mins)
- 10 – 20 km: HR 150, pace 6:30 (65 mins)
- 20 – 30 km: HR 160, pace 7:00 (70 mins)
- 30 – 36 km: HR 165, pace 7:15 (43 mins)
- 36 – 42 km: HR 165, pace 7:30 (45 mins)
- Total: 283 mins or 4 hours 43 mins.
Training Plan
- The training focus:
- Make HR constant at 150 for pace 6:30 then 6:00.
- Allow me run at pace 7:00 effortlessly (this will be used as recovery and main pace throughout)
- Weekly
- 2 interval runs during weekdays
- Distance: 12-15 km
- Part 1 is 5 km interval, named HR Inversion, target HR zone 5, pace: 5:00
- Part 2 is 7-10 km, named HR Normalization, target HR zone 3, pace 6:30 – 7:00
- 1 long runs during weekend
- Distance: 21 – 30 km
- One pacing through out, named Conditioning Run, target HR zone 3, pace: 6:30 – 7:00.
- Weekly mileage:
- Before tapering: 60 km
- After tapering: 40 km
- 2 interval runs during weekdays
- Swimming, Cycling and Gym will be used as cross training.
Phew, I could just throw the thinking hat aside and get sweaty. Just do it and I will feel better, stronger and more confident. Yeah!
For those whom is dreaming of doing 5 km or 10 km, I strongly believe you can do it. All you have to do is to stop for few second, take a few deep breathes, change your clothes, put on a running shoes and just run. First you can run a bit then walk and repeat the process. The moment you get sweat hard enough, you will realize that you could do more and will decide to be a runner. It is just like me, I can do it, certainly you can do it as well.
All the best and keep running your new healthy habit. We all need a strong foundation for health, mental and strength to face head-to-head with incoming life challenges.
I will post an update on my race result in December. Watch out 😉
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