i2runner

Marathon Mileage Build-up

When I failed to break my 22minute 5K 10yr old Personal Record last November, I swore to myself I’d be ready by next year and try again. I thought I should train smarter, harder, longer, and faster. Since I have a year to prepare, the smartest way to begin was to increase my weekly mileage. I read somewhere that the optimum mileage for most people was 40 miles per week (64kms/wk). Any higher, and you’ll have diminishing return of aerobic benefits. So I’ve set my target to 40-50miles per week. Then it occurred to me, this should be high enough to finish a marathon. So why not train for a marathon, just to finish is a great accomplishment already. Nobody at the office cares if you could run 15minute 5K’s or 30minute 10K’s, they wouldn’t understand. But a certificate of 42Km run would impress everybody at the office.

I started building-up my mileage last December 2008. At first, I just followed the 10% rule. Starting with a little over 25mpw, I was able to achieve 44mpw, but it was real stressful. So I backed-down a little and searched for Hal Higdon’s training plan. Turns out I was running too much weekday runs and too little long runs. So I reduced my weekday runs and stick to the current long run. I was increasing my long runs by one mile per week (1.6kms/wk). Since I was already able to run 44mpw, I decided to follow Hal-Higdon’s intermediate2 program that have higher mileage and tempo. To isolate the development of my slow-twitch muscles, I decided to stick to low running intensities (130-150bpm) and avoid the tempo runs and just follow the mileage only.

So far, here’s my progress:

Although the program states that every third week was a cutback on the long run (to let the body recover), I disobeyed until after my 16mile run when I felt quite tired. To me, the cutback really made no improvement. I continued to have knee pains due to my hilly running route. However the knee pains would disappear with 2 day’s rest after my long runs.

One dumb thing I did was skipping the 19mile long run and go straight for the 20miler this morning. At the beginning I still felt tired probably due to my 10mile run yesterday, and my knees were sore and felt some ITB pain on my left leg. This was probably due to the uneven banking of my running route. After 10miles the pains were gone but I was sluggish. I ate some candy bar and the sugar lifted my spirits so I was able to regain strength. At mile 15 I felt my blood sugar drop again so I ate some more. The last 5 miles actually felt good, probably due to the fact that I was thinking the last 5miles was gonna be easy compared to the first 15miles, and I was running on my way home so I increased my pace. Although the latter miles were faster, the fatigue was also coming fast. My heart rate were elevating as well, but still within my aerobic limits. The fatigue felt different, and I also got some aches in my neck. On the last 400meters, my knee pain came back and I had to slow down. I had to rest the rest of the day, and I feel a lot better now.

Overall, I’m quite happy to finish my first 20 miler. Since this is the longest run for a novice marathoner’s program, I should now have the endurance to finish the marathon. However with the exhaustion I’ve felt today, my respect for the distance is just getting stronger. Milo Marathon is still 5months away, I guess I have a lot of time to improve my speed and hopefully get a decent marathon debut time.

20-mile splits:

My 20-mile running route: