...

I step into the lift of the Nishinetsu Hotel and found an african runner talking to a guy who had a heavy italian accent. By the time the lift arrived at the ground floor, we already introduced each other and got to know that the runner wearing jeans and a rapper jacket was Samuel Wanjiru, ready to debut the day after in a Marathon.

In the friendly atmosphere of the Fukuoka Marathon, I got the occasion to meet more times the man and have a long chat with his manager too...
4 years were long enough to make him touch the sky and then go into a dangerous downhill.
Anyway this is my personal farewell to this great athlete.

this is a nice one

nice pic from polish website  

One meter after the finish line I felt like my ankle was exploding and I could not stand anymore...

(Note: nice to have a pretty blonde taking care of you... but I did not notice at the time)

Thumbs Up / Down

Now back in Hong Kong, I appreciated in full the "weather gap" between the 15C dry in Europe and the 27C/haze/90%rh here...

In the past 2 weeks I did not run at all, just eat, eat and eat...
It was the right time to let all my niggling injuries heal and get some down time from running to charge the batteries in view of the next season.
Said that, from the marathon I good some really good learnings, which I try to summarize here

THUMBS UP:

1) Cracovia Marathon: is itself a very nice race, well organized and very much runner friendly.
With 3000 at the start, it is still something where you can focus on the pleasure of the race without too many cumbersome logistic problems (like waiting for 3 hours in freezing cold like in NY..).
The course was not actually pancake flat, but there were some slight inclines which are undetectable on the course profile, but not on a couple of tired legs...
Plenty of water points, with also energy drinks and food, etc... Even a post-race massage was available.
For me it was even easier thanks to the kindness of the organizer who granted me a Elite bib.
The course is quite spectacular with nice vierws of the old town, even if the section between 18 and 26K around the suburb of Nowa Huta  (dull socialist style industrial town) was rather disappointing (not many spectators and the marathon was taking only one lane of the large boulevards, so we shared our run with passing-by cars...)
Entry fee is a reasonable 30 Euro and for additional 12 Euro I could get a digital version of all the 59 pictures taken by the race photographs (!!). Considering also the modest cost for lodging and food and the range of low-cost flights from all over Europe, it is sure a good choice for a Spring marathon. Good race and good sightseeing for a long weekend.
I do not bother anybody with all the 59 shots, but here some of the most spectacular:

2) ASICS Tarther Blitz 2: I must really do an unconditional endorsement for these shoes...

• Light but supportive (around 220 grams)
• cushioned but let your feel the road
• really wrap around the feet
• good grip

I really felt totally sold-out on them... they are the "perfect shoes" for a marathon (at least for a pronator like myself).
The only draw-back is that at 950 HKD RRP (around 120 USD), they are not on the cheap side (at least for HK standard...). Since I won them at a race, I could not complain on this. But probably they are well worthy the extra money



3) Our club uniform: a real hit also in Poland... everybody was shouting "Bravo" and "Vai Italia" !!

4) My overall training plan: no doubts that it works.
Long hard workouts at or near race pace every 3-4 days + many easy runs...
I think I slacked a bit on the strides, hill sprints, etc and therefore lacked a bit of speed and neuromuscolar coordination.
for good inspiration, give a look at the training of Moses Mosop for the Boston Marathon. We are obviously an another planet in terms of speed and overall workload, but the structure of the training plan is clear. 


THUMBS DOWN:


1) Traveling long-haul with small Kids: honestly I think it was it was a "2 minutes loss" factor.
- jet-lag: the kids were up and awake at 4am
- the baby with a cold, kicking me all night long (he was sleeping in our bed)
- walking and driving here and there for all the 3 days before the race...
So I took the start line probably really low on sleep and energies...
I got a lesson, an intercontinental trip is already a big stress, with the kids then became unsustainable. In short, next time...leave the kids at home

2) Injury Management: I was way too slow to react to the different injuries:
- hamstring: I waited too  long to go for a series of deep-tissue massages
- foot: dragged around for 4 weeks with a painful foot, popping pills and putting ice... it would have been better to head straight to the doctor and do the cortisone shot which was a solver in 2 days!
- tendon inflammation: also too slow to react... (well the time was not much anyway, but). It come out of nowhere, but I should have headed straight to the doctor. The shot on saturday afternoon did not have enough time to make effect and was too late.
So I really did poorly on treating my injuries...
The big lesson is that is always better to skip running immediately for 2-3 days at every small pain and deploy all the most powerful "weapons", rather than trying to cure with only RICE and easy runs...

3) Running a race with a Garmin (or any GPS): I did the experiment and it was really a total failure:
I had set-up the screen to disply the average total pace and the average pace of the current lap.
I was taking splits at each Km marker in order to avoid the usual GPS errors.
But still... my watch was maybe giving me an average lap pace of 3'40" and then I was maybe splitting in 3'45" or 3'50"... So I did not really know what to trust and how to adjust the pace.
Overall I think that the approach of using a HR monitor and checking the split at every Km is more reliable and let the runner make a better distribution of the effort...

When does a Marathon start ?

The usual say is that a Marathon starts at 20 Mile mark...
...But while sitting in the waiting room of the hospital of Rybnik, I
could not avoid thinking that a marathon could begin much ahead, with
overcoming all the difficulties which can happen in the training, etc.

So I had the time to think that:
- 5 weeks before, I was in terrific shape and was easily crunching
miles and hard workouts. My dream of running a marathon in 2:35' was
getting close...
- then I woke up one day with inflammation to the sesamoidis which
afflicted me for weeks until I eventually cured it with a cortisone
shot
- my hamstring went out of control, with the tragi-comic even of
getting cramps on a 10k race and even tripping on the finish line
because the leg could not bend anymore. Now I had done some physical
therapy session and deep tissue massage but basically I could not
perform any "faster" workout for weeks and I could not predict how it
could behave on 42km.
- my baby son got a cold and did not let us sleep in the past 4
nights, so I felt really tired

...And I was there, waiting for a doctor to perform a
Cortison+lydocain shot on my ankle which got inflamed 3 days before
(for no apparent reason)... It was a last resort measure.

So all together I thought that I already did have a long way to go
before even maybe able to take the start the day after.

Despite this, I said to myself that I would have anyway tried to run
on 2h35'-36' pace. I must give it anyway a try because of all the
effort done to be there.

So, the day after, I left the HR monitor in the closet , did the usual
pre-race preparation, enjoy the benefit of my "Elite" start bib, and
then go...

Maybe is too tedious to write all the race details (and I am also
typing from a smartphone..), so I just say that I hit half marathon in
1h18'30" and then kept 3'42"/k pace (my target) until 30k.
The ankle was like a stinging needle at every step but I could bear it.

Then..I felt tired, I felt I did not have those energy in the tank to
increase my internal effort and keep the target pace.
The ankle was by than bloody painful, with the medicine numbing effect
completely gone.
So, in short, I had to slow down.
I did not bonk, I did not hit any wall, but I was simply slowing down.
I was no more racing, but only running to the finish line
I was strangely still overtaking other runners who were bonking hard.
Eventually after 2h40'03" I reached the finish line in 23rd place, but
the finish time does not really mattered much.
I could not even walk properly anymore and I felt kind of somehow
disappointed but proud to do it anyway...a Marathon is always a
Marathon

In the next days, once I have a proper PC, I elaborate more, but for
now that's all...

landed and ready for take-off

after surviving a intercontinental flight with 3 small kids, running the marathon on sunday will feel like a rest day... only 2h40' of effort "solo" (vs 20 hours of HKG-KRK with 3 kids) and there are even people handing you water every 20 minutes...
apart the jokes, we landed eventually in Poland

weather is promising, with forecast of 8 to 14C for Sunday.

I got up yesterday with pain in the left ankle, for no real reason (after a rest day !). Now I am in search of some analgesic spray or similar to numb the pain for the race.

Lastly, before leaving HK, I eventually subjected myself to the torture of deep-tissue massage to the hamstring to release the tight spots.

So, Sunday the verdict
If all these last-minute repairs work, it can be a good one... otherwise I might not even arrive to the first drink station.

Marathon Pacing Strategy

taking lead from a comment from Rick to my previous post, I would to list some personal guidelines of mine:

- after many observations, I think that negative split is possible and definitely the best strategy for a marathon in the 2h20'-3h00' hrs range (for people targeting 4hrs of so, the situation might be different because it is a much longer time on your feet so also peripheral fatigue might be of stronger influence).
If you target to reach the 25k mark with something in the tank, then it is "only" 1 hours of effort left (more or less).
All the stories about glycogen exhaustion and so on really give solid base to run a first half in more moderate effort and then give it all...

- my personal preference is to run always with HRM so that I can start the marathon with the first 5k at 80% HRmax and then gradually build up to 85% after 15k to keep until when you must forget about the HR and just push harder to keep the pace.
Usually the recommended average HR for a marathon is around 85% HRmax. But if you start straight at 85%, then it become unsustainable after 25-30k and eventually you will lose speed and also the HR will drop (for exhaustion of glycogen reserves).
If starting at a more moderate pace/effort (85%) the HR can gradually rise and keep on rising for all the race even reaching 10K effort level (90-92% of the max).

Better than whatever I could say, I found this GREAT pace calculator for the marathon
http://feelrace.com/marathonperfekt.html


It is 99% the same principle as I would follow and gives you both the progression of pace and HR to follow... amazing online resource

- 5 ... let's hope I can last 42k...

In the past 2 weeks, I was not really "training" but more managing injuries and trying to arrive to the start line of the marathon in an acceptable condition.
I am in excellent shape and I do not think that 2 weeks of light training make a big impact at the end of a long season. I am not like those guy coming out from cold winters in north hemisphere who start a 16 weeks training from scratch... I started to train for this marathon last July so I am definitely confident I can run 42k at 3'40" pace, BUT

- foot pain: after losing too much time on this, I eventually headed to the Orthopedic and he confirmed my self-diagnosis of "inflammation to the sesamoids". He was then pretty straightforward: either I had to swallow pain-killers, put ice, etc and still have the inflammation for weeks, either we went for the "heavy weapons" and do a cortisone shot and cure it in 2 days. Decision easily taken at this stage also because I was already mentally prepared that it was the necessary cure.
A cortisone shot on the ball of the foot is terribly painful and let my foot swollen for a couple of days (when I could barely walk... forget about running). Going out from the doctor's building, I had to take a tram for 2 stops (300m) to reach the car parking because I could not even walk...
but 2 days later the pain was gone and the inflammation too... now the foot is 100% Ok

- hamstring: this is a real mess. Whenever I push the pace and if I do not pay attention to run with a light stride, the hamstring seizes...
I am doing some physio and self-massage to release the muscle and I also changed my marathon shoes into a brand new pair of Asics Tharther Blitz + new orthotics

The shoes are a model available only in Asia and they are a kind of "supportive marathon shoes", not super light, decent support and cushier feeling.

Also I got a new pair of orthotics more flexible, with a softer built and a flexible insert.

I think it can be a good move because the Mizuno+my previous orthotics made for a quite "stiff" and "responsive" stride.

So I had the feeling that the Mizuno really needed me to run with a very light stride and avoid heel striding. While this set-up feels a bit more forgiving.

All together, obviously the shoes are not a solution, but just a patch. Once the marathon is done, I will need to work on my hip/hamstring flexibility + gluteus strength during all summer.

Now, basically I have no idea if the hamstring can hold for 42k. In the last HK Marathon, I had 2-3 bouts of cramps/tightness which disappeared by altering the stride.
I will try to run light and focus in the stride, but 42k is a long way............