9 weeks to Berlin Marathon: How to run a sub 1.45 half marathon?
When the race day came, a flat course, lovely weather and fully recovered body and mind had once again allow me to break my own record. Here is my story
9 weeks to Berlin Marathon: How to run a sub 1.45 half marathon?
I travelled again. This time, it was St. Petersburg half marathon in Russia. Before this event I was so uncertain about my fitness. It was quite a black out moment since 70.3 Busselton when I had more confidence about where I was and what I should do on race day.
When the race day came, a flat course, lovely weather and fully recovered body and mind had once again allow me to break my own record. Here is my story
What I train ? (Training plan by Suthut Kanlayanakitti)
*Mon: rest
Tue: 12 km mid long run (easy to moderate)
Wed: 12 km run (include 8 x 800m )
Thu: rest
Fri: 5 km easy run
Sat:
Sun: Race day (21 km )
*
Total 50 km
How I feel ?
Until the start time, I was still not so sure about how this race would look like. Honestly, It would be great if I can break 1:50 hours again. In the mean time, I wanted to test my lilmit and break my record (1:44:48 hrs) since 2017 at Buriram.
I ran quite conservative in the first 5 km and be with 1:49 hours pacers group. I felt ok and not so tired with this pace but It was quite crowded to run in the group. So I decided to break from the group and run on my own after 5 km passed. I tried not to look at my watch and ran by feel as long as possible. It went pretty well and I felt so great for the whole 10 km.
Once I reach 15 km marked, It became very clear that I had to push harder if I still wanted to have a new record in this race.
" Run at 4:50 min/km pace as long as possible then go all out in the last 2 km" I told myself. I was totally out of breath and definitelty in pain in the last 3 km. Once I crossed the finish line, it was so amazing to realise that finally I broke my personal record for just 20 seconds.
Your take away messages
Runing to win and running not to lose are totally different in many ways. I used to be a guy who train and race with " not to lose" feeling. I always race with these kind of thoughts and attitudes; don't want to finish 10 km over 1 hours , don't want to go over 2 hours in half marathon or etc.
Sound familiar? Almost everyone had these kind of thoughts at some points during training sessions or racing. All of you know that these thoughts always prevent you from having your best result you plan to achieve.
What if you just change your attitude from racing with "what you don't want to happen" to " what you want to happen" Whether it is training or racing, go out there with this new attitude and see what you could really achieve. And when the final few steps arrive, you will definitely not regret about it.
TCtriathlon
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