Cutting back and tapering for my marathon

I’ve reached the peak of my marathon training and now enter a three week taper/cutback period. Reading other blogs one thing is certain, not many runners enjoy the taper period. Aren’t we stupid? We all know how good it is for us, but still we don’t like it. I ran 305.6km in January and 293km in Feb. These legs are happy there’s tapering coming up. They need (and deserve) the rest. It’s just difficult to convince my mind how much rest.

So what do I do to get through the three weeks? I handle the first two weeks by cutting back but still run my normal 6 days per week. I also include two races which I’ll just run comfortably. A half marathon the first Sunday and a 15km the second Sunday. This way I should still feel as if I’m just running as normal and not really tapering. Remember I’m actually training for some ultras and the marathon is just a stepping stone in the buildup process. The only reason I’m resting up a bit before this marathon is because I want to use it to qualify for the Comrades marathon. So it is important to have a good run. If it wasn’t for the qualifying, I wouldn’t taper and use the marathon as a LSD run.

The third week will be a proper taper week with complete rest the two days before the marathon. My three taper weeks will be as follow:

Week 1
Mon: Rest
Tue: 9km
Wed: 15.1km
Thu: 9km
Fri: 12.2km
Sat: 5km
Sun: 21.1km (Vaal Half Marathon)

Week 2
Mon: Rest
Tue: 9km
Wed: 15.1km
Thu: 9km
Fri: 12.2km
Sat: 5km
Sun: 15km (Alberton 15km)

Week 3
Mon: Rest
Tue: 9km
Wed: 6km
Thu: Rest
Fri: Rest
Sat: 42.2km (Elands Valley Marathon)
Sun: Rest

This is still a fairly busy schedule and I think this should get me through the taper thing without too much frustration.

Run, Eat, Drink, be Merry…With Moderation!

I’ve never been on a diet and hope I’ll never have to be. I’ve never had a serious weight problem, but I do pick up weight very quickly if I don’t run. Luckily I’ve been running most of the last 29 years! I’m currently on a comeback after the longest running layoff I’ve ever had and yes, I’ve got weight to lose.

When I was in my late twenties and early to mid thirties, I could eat and drink what I want and as much as I wanted and still lose weight, as long as I ran 40km or more per week. Now that I’m 46 this has changed completely. I only started losing weight worth mentioning when I reached 60km – 65km per week. The chart below shows my weight loss from May 2009 to Feb 2010 (in kilograms). It looks good, but it’s not that much for 9 months. I weigh myself on the last Friday of every month.

Although it’s been a slow process, I’m actually quite happy with this. I’m not dieting at all and eat pretty much anything I feel like having. I believe my body tells me what I need, so if I get a craving for red meat, I’ll have red meat, if I crave cheese, I’ll eat cheese. I do however eat and drink with moderation. I’ve always been very disciplined when it comes to moderation. That’s been the case my whole life. I never eat or drink too much.

I still believe this is the way to go. The more I run, the more I eat, but I still do so in moderation. If I eat chocolate cake, I’ll have one slice and that’s it. I also drink alcohol only once per month at most and often only once in three months or so. When I do, it will be one beer or two glasses of wine. I don’t drink any other alcohol, only beer and wine. Other than that I stay away from any fatty or oily food and only use low fat milk, yogurt and anything else that comes in low fat. I never go for fat free. I believe if I train a lot I must take in some fat.

So I eat just about anything but always stick to moderation. I’m losing weight a bit slow, but at the same time I’m running injury free and haven’t had a cold or flu for a very long time. I know as I increase my weekly distance my weight will drop much quicker. The secret is to do this and stay cold, flu and injury free at the same time. For me this means run, eat, drink and be merry…with moderation.

Replacing Running Shoes

I always try to get as much distance as possible out of my running shoes. I’ve been keeping track of this since 1994 and get an average of 1210km (750 miles) per pair. The most was 1549km (960 miles) and I’ve also had shoes that only lasted 820km (508 miles). I would say 800km (496 miles) is the minimum distance one should get out of a pair of shoes. Maybe I’m totally off the mark, but I think most would agree 800km – 1000km should be the minimum. I’m happy with my average 1210km (750 miles) per pair. This is all when running on the road only, no trails. That’s a different story.

I was applying some Sole Saver patching to my old shoes a while back when my son asked me why I made such a mess of my shoes. After explaining that patching the soles help a little to get more distance out of the shoes he suggested I rather buy new ones. Well his eight years old and buying new ones obviously looks very logic to him.

I usually run with two pairs of shoes, alternating them for long and short runs. I use a pair for long runs until I’ve done about 800km with it. Then I swop them with the newer pair and use the old ones for shorter runs until they really can’t be used anymore. That’s when I buy a new pair and run the short runs in the new pair until I swop with the older ones and so I carry on, alternating older and newer shoes as I alternate hard (long) runs with easy (short) runs.

In South Africa running shoes aren’t that cheap and paying about R700 to R1000 (that’s SA rands) is normal. I asked about shoes and the distances people get out of a pair on a local forum recently. It seems my average of 1210km is fairly high compared to most other runners. The average for other runners was between 600 and 800km (372 and 496 miles). The shoes in the photos below had 1000km behind them when I applied the patching. In general the soles still look very good. I always have problems with front foot support before the soles show much wear and tear.

I usually buy 2 - 3 pairs of shoes per year if I run throughout the year as planned. Seems I’m lucky I don’t need new shoes more often. How often do you buy new running shoes?

How or when did you know you caught the running bug?

This post is in response to Christina's Running Question Challenge.

Question:
How or when did you know you caught the running bug?

Answer:
For me this was very long ago in 1981. My dad signed our whole family up for a race. He, my brother and I did a half marathon and my mom and two sisters a 10km. This was my first official road race. I was in grade 12, my last year at school. I went on to join my dad at more races and was hooked for life. I knew I caught the bug when I started feeling normal about getting out of bed at 4AM to run.

Since then I’ve run 1270 official road races. I hope to reach 2000 races one day. The 1270 is 175 x 10km, 245 x 15km, 378 x 21.1km(half marathons), 184 x 32km(20 milers), 121 x 42.2km (marathons), 111 x ultra marathons and 56 x non standard distances (9km, 16km, 20km, 25km, 30km). Most of these were done in the 1980’s and 90’s.

A Good Week

I completed a good week yesterday with a 25.5km training run. I enjoy these long runs on my own and feel they add more than just the distance to my training. I feel these longer runs build character and helps with mental strength as well. It’s definitely easier to do long runs with someone or in a race. Toughing it out alone when you’re getting tired towards the end is sometimes difficult and this is where the mental training starts. On these runs I just relax and run, starting my watch at the beginning and only looking at it again when I stop it when I finish. Time doesn’t matter and this makes the long runs more enjoyable. I just go out and run like I feel. Yesterday’s run was good overall.

This is me before I went out at 4:30. I think I’m staring at the camera like that because my eyes were shocked that I actually made them look into a flash at that time of the morning.

The weather was perfect and I enjoyed a spectacular sunrise. I felt good and happy that I can really see and feel progress with my running. A wise lady (running buddy with 20 Comrades and a string of 100 milers behind her) always tells me,(in Afrikaans, my home language) “jy moet eers padhard word”. Directly translated that is: “you must first become road hard” or road tough. I thought of her yesterday because I feel I’m getting road tough.

That’s me after my 3 hour run. This time I’m staring at the camera because my eyes were burning from the sweat. At least it looks as if I had a good workout. Actually it was better than that. I had a great run!

This completes a good 75.8km week and I also passed 500km for the year. Today I rest and I’m already looking forward to the next good week. This, if all goes according to plan, will be an 85.5km week. Have a nice week everyone!

ASA Bans iPods From Races

Athletics South Africa has banned iPods from all races. I won’t even try to get the logic behind this decision. Apparently it comes for the cycling world with the controversy over the use of ear pieces to get information from team managers and coaches about the race and opponents. ASA took this further and banned all electronic devices connected to ear pieces or something like that.

Now I wonder how someone can receive info via an iPod. Maybe I can record a motivational message that can give me an unfair advantage…? For decades top runners have been receiving information from the side of the road, written on water bottles, pieces of paper or just shouted out. What’s the difference? Receiving it via a device in your ear or having it shouted to you as you run past your coach? You may also not use your cell phone with a headphone or ear piece. Wonder if you can still carry it and phone someone to come and pick you up if you run into trouble and want to bail out of a race? What about just a MP3 player?

Anyway, this is dumb! If they want to make stupid rules for the top runners that’s fine, but to ban something like this totally is a joke. I never run with music anyway so I don’t get affected by this myself. Not that many runners run with earphones in races. In SA running is a very social affair and once you get to being a regular runner, you’ll rather enjoy the company of those around you than listen to your iPod.

We’ll have to see if and how they enforce this rule. I wonder if any other country will do something stupid like this.

Whatever and wherever you’re running or not running this weekend, enjoy! For something inspirational, have a look at this post by Dave.

100 Days to go!

Well, there’s 100 days left to get in shape and ready for this year’s Comrades marathon on 30 May. Time certainly flies when you’re having fun! With 100 days to go I think it’s a good time to take stock and look at where I am with my running.

The main focus at the moment is to qualify for Comrades. At the same time I’m building up to go beyond the marathon and run some ultras as part of my Comrades training. This year I’m just going for a sub 12 hour finish at Comrades. For this I don’t mind to qualify in the slowest batch (H). To do this I must run a marathon in less than 5 hours or a 50km in less than 6 hours. There are also some easier options with a 48km in less than 6 hours or a 52km in less than 6:30. Sounds easy enough, but I’m in a comeback phase after a long layoff from running and my last marathon was in April 2004.

My marathon training is going well and I’ve done 2 x 32km races as long runs this month already. This week and next week will be my peak training before the marathon with 75.8km and 85.8km respectively. Then I’ll cut back a bit for two weeks leading up to the Elands Valley marathon on 20 March. If something goes wrong here, there are a few alternatives.

So my schedule for qualifying and training for Comrades will be as follow:

20 March – Elands Valley Marathon (Qualify for Comrades)

28 March – Bruce Fordyce 50km (Only if I qualify at Elands Valley)
2, 3, 4 April – Easter 100km (48, 33, 19)
11 April – Slowmag Marathon (Can qualify here if needed)
17 April – Loskop 50km (Can also qualify here if needed)
24 April – Coaldust 48km (Easy last desperate qualifier, 48 under 6 hours)

26 April – Closing date for qualifying

2 May - 65km long run
3 - 29 May - Taper
30 May - Comrades Marathon (89km)

Even if I don’t qualify I’ll still run most of these. I don’t run for Comrades only. I’ve got a few ultra goals for the second half of the year as well. All of this looks very exciting and a bit daunting at the same time. One thing is certain; the 100 days are going to pass extremely fast!