Since Madrid I've been thinking about what to take on as my next big challenge. I've now completed two marathons, but after both I've felt disappointed to some degree, my performance in the races has not lived up to the expectations I had of myself after the months of training. After these disappointments, one thought that occurs is that maybe I'm just not cut out for running marathons, maybe I should concentrate on running shorter distances or try another sport, triathlon being the most obvious option after two years of endurance training.
One day I may have to decide that enough is enough but that day hasn't arrived yet. I'd like to give the marathon one more shot at the very least. In Madrid I got to 30 kilometres feeling ok but things just fell apart from there. Deterioration in performance after 30 kilometres is not something unique to me, its the point in the race commonly known as 'the wall', unfortunately its not the point in the race where everyone hears a great Pink Floyd album, but when you feel like you are running into a brick wall. The science of it is that up to 30km your body uses its stores of carbohydrates which are easily turned into energy used to carry you round the course, however at 30km those stores run dry and instead the body turns to burning fat, which is a much less efficient process.
So the answer seems simple, fuel up on carbs before and during the race and everything will go fine. Well I tried that in Madrid, I was trying to eat alot of carbs before the race, and during the race I was taking on gels, but nerves before meant I didn't have the appetite for the carbs and I never really got on with the gels I tried.
Then its clear that before any future marathon I should make sure I'm clear on my plan for fuelling up during the race, i.e. find a gel that I get on with. Another step I can take is to practice the carbo-loading process for a couple of my longer runs during the training cycle, then hopefully my stomach will be more likely to accept the extra load when the race day comes around.
However, there is another step I'm going to take to try to improve my performance. Over the past three-and-a-half years that I have been running I have always been training to get round. I signed up for a half-marathon and just started preparing to be able to complete the distance. I kept on running, and signed up for a marathon, and again I was just preparing to finish the race. Though I've improved over time I've never really pushed to see just how fast I can run.
My thinking now is that as much as the distance is a killer in the marathon, its also the time on your feet, carbo-loading is recommended for activities lasting longer than 90 minutes but if I can improve my speed over the distance I can reduce the time I'm running beyond 90 minutes meaning carbo-loading is not so important. So this is my plan, teach myself to run faster! It sounds a pretty basic thing to do for a runner, but when going from preparing one race after another I really haven't tried.
So what am I going to do? I've set myself an objective. The world's top marathoners get through 42 kilometres averaging faster than 3 minutes per kilometre, over the next six weeks I will be training towards the goal of running just one kilometre at that pace. At the moment the fastest I've managed is 3:25 so I've got some way to go but I want to give it a shot, if nothing else I want to feel what elite pace is like, but the end objective will be to see if learning to run fast can lead me to improvements in my PBs in 10k, half-marathon and hopefully a marathon over the next twelve months.
I'll be letting you know how i'm getting on over the next few weeks.
That's all for now.
Happy running.
El maratonero
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