Pre-Race Thoughts

I’m aiming to run my third marathon in Shizuoka on Sunday . My first road marathon outing was very low key local event, second was huge (Boston) and this will fall in between, about 12,000 runners.

I had hoped to do the Tokyo marathon, but they wouldn’t have me, so I looked to Tom do Canto for some advice and he suggested Shizuoka and it looks like it ticks all the boxes, fast course, spring time, Japan. Ironically enough one of my brothers lived there back in the day when he was starting out on his career as an engineer.

Preparation this time has been pretty good, given my advancing years I opted to aim for 3 week training blocks of 100-110kms a week with a recovery week in between where volume dropped to 50-60kms. It seemed to work pretty well and I have put four months in at that level after starting my build up in October.

It may sound like a pretty low bar, but I have been particularly pleased that I haven’t fallen over (yet!) in this build up. Boston preparation was badly impacted by an innocuous trip off a kerb and a bang on my knee. This time I’ve been paranoid about a repeat and every kerb up and down demands disproportionate attention.

One of my friends uses the expression “always a pleasure, never a chore” and that is the opposite to the experience of training over the summer in Sydney. The heat and humidity has been a real challenge and every run seems like a chore and the pleasure is to be found with the company and scenery instead. Training in heat and humidity does have it’s benefits and some compare it to training at altitude. The downside is that it makes every run feel like a struggle, and I felt my confidence took a beating when running at my goal race pace for short efforts felt unsustainable.

In a fortunate turn of events, I was in contact with one of the team at Nike and when I told him about my race plans and he sent me a pair of Nike Alphafly, their whizz bang, you beaut, all the bells and whistles racing shoe. I’ve run in super shoes with carbon plates before but these definitely stand out. My first run in them wasn’t outstanding but my second run definitely felt special. At an easy intensity I was running quite a bit faster than normal, and running at marathon pace felt pretty controlled despite the heat and humidity. They say that different individuals respond differently to the shoes, but for me it does seem to correlate with improved efficiency. It will be interesting to see what race day brings.

My last couple of weeks of training were great, I finally felt like I could hit race pace relatively comfortably and my confidence got a welcome boost. I started thinking that I could push the pace harder and aim for a faster time, particularly as I’d be leaving the heat and humidity behind me and would be racing in the cool Japanese spring.

The last couple of weeks of taper have been less encouraging. In some ways it feels like the wheels have come off and the brief window of premature adulation (to coin a phrase shared by Malachy MacCarthy) has passed and some self doubt has crept in. The last two weeks felt like a struggle, instead of feeling fresh and rested I was feeling rundown and crook. I tried to console myself that this was almost a caricature of a tapering runner.

My training has been great, I don’t think I’ve ever run better in training, running faster at lower heart rate without fatigue creeping in, and although I’ve felt run down, I haven’t been sick. That leaves me a little short on excuses if things don’t go well but I’m sure there’ll be a couple of curve balls to face before the finish line.

Race Report

Tough day in the office but very happy with the outcome. 

Going into the race I thought, at least, I could run a 2.48, would be happy with a 2.45 and maybe if all my ducks were in a row I might sneak home in 2.42. My official time was 2.45.57 so we can call that a 2.45.

I had been a little concerned about my form in two weeks leading into the race, I had felt very flat. Unlike my last marathon where I felt like I was chomping at the bit, this time I just didn’t feel fired up. That said, my training had been awesome and my resting heart rate was the lowest I recall, down to 34 beats a minute where normally for me somewhere around 40 would be normal. I tried to take comfort in this but still felt uncertain about how my body would respond on the day. I resolved to play the cards that would be dealt on the day.

I had a poor nights sleep which is pretty normal so didn’t stress me, but I woke up an absolute bag of nerves, a more nervous kitten you couldn’t imagine. I struggled with the fundamental interaction with a couple of mini croissants at breakfast. The positive I took from this was that it was a good sign that I was gearing up!

I caught up with Keith Hong outside my hotel and we made our way to the start, it was great to have a familiar face to navigate our way to the start together. Organisation of the event was phenomenal and before long we had dropped of our finish line bags and were making our way to the marshalling area. It was a pretty chilly morning, but the sun took the edge off it and shortly before the start I offloaded my gloves, second buff and arm warmers to another friend, Ji Sheng, whose partner was also racing. The only concern was the wind which picked up pretty quickly as we waited for the start. When I had looked at the race route my only concern was a headwind on the long, straight coastal section and alas so it was coming to pass.

The first 15kms were winding through the city and I felt like I was moving well, deliberately holding back and trying to stick to a good rhythm. The pace was good and I thought maybe my A goal could be in reach. My plan had been to run within myself for the first 22kms and then try and wind up on the long coastal section, I had imagined myself letting myself roll like I was cycling a bike and ticking the kilometres off. Alas the section from 15 to 22kms was a bit more exposed, and the setting more rural, as we made our way along the banks of a river and then across a really cool steel bridge. At times we were getting buffeted by the wind and the penny dropped, that long coastal section was not going to be the time to try and make hay!

From 22 to 35kms was pretty much into the teeth of the wind, pace dropped and intensity went up as I tried my best to maintain a good rhythm and work with the runners around me. Alas there weren’t too many big units to break the wind and those I did see were going backwards. Early in this section I got my first glimpse of the snow capped Mount Fuji looming magnificently above the clouds which did lift my spirits. Later I saw a couple walking their goat which is definitely a marathon first for me, it was another welcome distraction. This section was brutal, I knew I wouldn’t be changing direction until the 35km mark so it was time to dig deep and hopefully avoid blowing a gasket, by now there were plenty of runners paying for their early exuberance. At some point along the way my left quad started to make its displeasure known. I figured I’d been chopping my stride to keep my turnover up and so I tried to open up a little and it seemed to keep it at bay for long enough for my right quad to join the chorus and once again there was symmetry in the world.

There was a definite surge in the pace of the runners around me as we entered the last 6kms. I was in sufficient discomfort that I thought I should just try and keep rolling along at my own pace and avoid joining the walking wounded. There were a couple of fast downhill sections and it was a relief to get through them with my dusty old quads not seizing up. The kilometres kept rolling by and I was stoked to sneak home just under the 2.46 mark. I only found out when I checked out the official results that I had missed out on the age group win by 2 seconds!

It was a fantastic event, the volunteers were sensational, passing every aid station was a cacophony of noise as they cheered on runners and rewarded any interaction. The locals showed up in numbers, it was lovely to see both young and old cheering on the runners. It was unusual to be in such a minority, I think I saw two other white guys during the race and only a handful more before and after.

Positives:

  • Extremely consistent build up in terms of volume
  • Marathon paced training in tempo sessions and as part of long runs felt very good as race day came closer, this was only from about 6 weeks out. Up on then I had to take faith in the belief that sticking to the process would pay off.
  • Nutrition worked well again, I used Maurten gels every 5kms (every 19-20 minutes) so roughly 75g of carbs per hour. I am curious about pushing this a little harder but race day wasn’t the day to start. There were not gels on course so I carried them in my naked belt.

Lessons:

  • There is no substitute for consistency!
  • I feel my training was missing some faster running, next time I would like to incorporate some VO2 max training. I think this will help condition my legs as well as lift my fitness.
  • I had hoped to incorporate a half marathon into training but opportunity didn’t present itself.
  • The onsen are a great recovery modality.
  • Racing in Japan is a fantastic experience.