GCAM17 Race Reflection Part I (YW)
Preparation towards BQ at GCAM
I came into this race with the intention of achieving a BQ with a sub-3 timing, targeting an average of 4:15min/km.
Despite falling short by 28 seconds with a 3:00:27 marathon (4.16min/km average), I’m still contented with my timing.
The weeks leading up to the race, I felt that I had the best preparation out of the previous 4 marathons that I have done (Frankfurt 2014 , SCMS 2015, Kobe 2016, Washington DC Rock n Roll 2017), even though I trained alot harder for Kobe 2016 compared to GCAM17.
I was confident of my fitness to run an average of 4:15min/km for 42.195km or even faster.
My previous PB was 3.04.39 at DC marathon this year. The timing came as a total surprise because I was treating the race casually and in my preparation for the race, I was just trying to clock as much mileage as I could, averaging about 100km/week. I did not even taper for the race, on the race week I was still running about 10km daily barring 1 day before the race.
Through the race though, I learnt couple of key training aspects about myself.
- I could do well with high mileage, even with minimal speed / marathon specific workouts.
- Monitoring HR during easy / tempo runs helps me to keep the runs at the intended effort level. (The coney gang got our training HR zones from Coached’s lactate threshold test)
- Including more elevations in my usual runs
However DC marathon landed me with a knee injury that got me out of running for 5 weeks. I had only 12 weeks left for training which includes the build up back to fitness and the taper to the race.
Following the things learnt from DC marathon, the intention of remaining 12 weeks of training is to maintain high mileage, increase the elevation in my runs and keep intervals to the weeks just before race.
Week 1–3 : Build up to running fitness
Week 4–6 : Base training block
Week 7 : Rested more due to TPS 21K.
The objective was to use TPS21k to assess my fitness. Race didn’t turn out well, I did a 1.33 which was 4:24min/km. This race was the turning point in my attitude towards running for the GCAM preparation
After the race, I had the following mantra reciting in my head:
In order to be a (good) runner, I need to live like a runner.
I need to pay more attention to other aspects of running.
- Sleep (no more working till late).
- Warming up before runs (dynamic stretches and exercises)
- Strengthening and stretching after runs
- Proper diet (balanced diet).
I began waking up 1.5 - 2 hours before #coneyrunners runs’ usual meeting time so that I could do my dynamic stretching and exercises before the run and making sure my pre-run food gets digested.
I prepared and brought salad to work for weekday lunches. Dinner is usually salad or something soupy bought outside.
Marathon specific workouts only started at training week 8.
The workouts felt moderately easy, I was cruising through the sets, usually doing faster @ 4.10–4.13 min/km.
Long runs felt great and the pace was getting faster as training progresses.
Based on past discussions and analysis within the coney gang, I knew that my mental strength is weaker than my peers such as Naz & John. I have been listening to running podcasts from Runners’ World and Strength Running from Jason Fitzgerald.
Elite runners were interviewed on how they tackle race anxiety, some methods include preparing yourself of the pain before the race by telling your mind that “This race is going to hurt” so that when it comes you are mentally ready to endure through it.
Another method is to use strong positive words a.k.a Running Mantra to motivate and encourage yourself to push through the pain. My choice of words are “Quick Feet” (remind me of high cadence) and “This is what you came for”, these were scribbled on to my left and right hand respectively, along with my race splits. (If you look closely at the first picture, you can see scribbles on both my hands.)
Physically I felt ready and my head was strong to power through the pain.
I am ready to race.
In the next part of my race reflection, I shall discuss on the race day execution.
Stay tuned.
Signing off, YW :)
