Keys to a Sub 4-Hour Marathon

When will this run ever gonna end?

If one has determination, then things will get done. - Chinese Proverb

Quite frankly, this should be a guide on what NOT to do on your first marathon. I injured my right knee and I failed by 15 minutes off my marathon finish goal (3:20 - 3:40 hours). Perhaps a 42-day marathon training schedule is too short for a marathon preparation. Hence, the injury. Perhaps my lack of mileage, again perhaps due to shorter than optimal training schedule, deprived me of my dream finish time.

On the other side of the coin, the side I believe is more important, I learned a lot from the marathon experience and the entire process of the marathon dream. Looking back, I logged around 300 kilometers of running to prepare for my marathon debut. Of those 300, 42 kilometers were during the race. The rest, which we shall discuss hereon, were all hard work and perseverance leading up to the marathon race. How did I train myself for the sub 4-hour marathon? What were the key marathon principles that boost my performance that day? What can future marathoners learn from my own marathon experience? What can we learn and carry over to the next marathon challenge?

The planning stage. Do you want to run a marathon?

1. Have a marathon strategy. It's not enough to decide that you will run a marathon. Answer the How question next.
2. Have a marathon training schedule. The When question should be planned and prepared for.
3. The How dictates the When.
   

Deliberating with myself on How I would like to run my first marathon... I decided to be aggressive and fast enough for a 3:20 - 3:40 hours finish. I am not necessarily fast enough at the planning stage. I just wanted to be fast enough at marathon day.

Now that I know How I would like to run my marathon. I then tackled the When. I needed to carefully plan and create a training schedule to equip myself to be able to run aggressive and fast enough (the How question). I reckoned, at that time, that a 42-Day training schedule would be needed to achieve my goals. The time frame easily dictated which marathon I would run. A marathon that would fit the 42-day training schedule. I joined the Philippine International Marathon scheduled on November 08, 2009.

After the planning stage, it's time to do some tough road work.
So how did I get fast enough to achieve a 3:55 finish?

Here, I believe, were the keys to my sub 4-hour marathon debut.

• Get Faster.
• Stay Fast for Longer Distances - Speed Endurance.
• Practice.. Practice.. Practice.

Get Faster

To be fast, I needed to do some speed work. I prioritized speed training in the starting weeks of my marathon schedule. I did 10x400meter Interval Runs.

The idea is to run as fast (sprint / run till you puke) as you can for 400 meters.. [as if your life depended on it, a split second late and a croc or a werewolf tears your behind] and then rest for a few hundred meters.. [pretend you have just beaten the croc or the werewolf by the slimmest of seconds and they suddenly disappeared in the dusts of your shoes].. and then sprint again [like you are being chased once again..].

Do the 400meter repeats ten times. Little by little, you will get used to the speed.. your running form adjusts with that speed.. your lungs feel to be getting bigger and bigger as you get used to the sprinting speed.. the heart beats much faster than normal and yet you feel it can already adapt to the stress of sprinting.. little by little, the body adapts. You are being trained to get faster.

Next.. carry the interval speed to your Tempo runs. By now, you already know how to run at top speed. Your next goal is to run as close to that speed for distances longer than 400 meters. Tempo runs are good to let the body adapt and memorize your race speed. Try to do your best 1K. Then your best 3K. Then progress to your best 5K, then to 10K. I remember breaking my best 10K race from 51 minutes to a 10K training speed of 46 minutes. That's how effective the speed work was.

Test your speed on a short distance race. Join a 5K race. Training is still pretty much different from a race. There are several race factors that training would not be able to prepare you for. The crowd, adrenaline rush, time of day, race route, etc. The 5K race was the last part of my speed training. I joined the Race for LIFE 5K distance. I finished it in 21 minutes, a 6th place overall finish. From doing intervals, to tempo runs, to a 5K race.. I got faster.

KL Speed Training References:
- HIIT - blog and logs
- More HIIT - more logs
- Race For LIFE, My 5K Race

Stay Fast for Longer Distances - Speed Endurance

After the 400meters and the 5kilometers, the next phase would be to carry the speed to longer distances. Longer Tempo runs would be the key runs to ensure running fast and carrying the speed. I did 14 - 21 kilometer Tempo runs. The anaerobic high intensity training from the Interval Runs should be able to prepare you for longer Tempos. But unlike the Intervals, Tempos are high speed runs for much longer distances. Your goal is to train and try to sustain that high speed - speed endurance.

The more commonly known endurance is the strength endurance or stamina. And it is just equally important, if not more important than speed endurance, for the marathon race distance. You don't want to crash and burn after the halfway mark, right? Long runs of 21 - 35 kilometers, at a slower pace, will develop this much needed stamina for us to run the full marathon distance.

Practice.. Practice.. Practice.

During the last two weeks prior to the marathon, do race simulation runs. Basically, these runs are just tempo runs slightly modified to meet your marathon strategy. I have adapted this training run from Ryan Hall, the fastest American marathoner today. You could simulate the 42kilometer run for both endurance and adapting to race pace. Ryan does his marathon simulations by running the first 21 kilometers in his slow pace and then the next 21 kilometers in his race pace.

You could also simulate your different running paces for several kilometers. I created my own 21-10-8 marathon strategy with the first 21 kilometers to be ran in 4:40 pace, a recovery pace for 1 kilometer, the next 10 kilometers at 4:30 pace, another recovery pace then the next 8 kilometers at 4:30 pace. I practiced this strategy over and over until it becomes all too familiar. Make the body adapt and memorize the paces, the running conditions and the fatigue. [My Marathon Training Strategy, Simulations and Logs]