If you asked me a year ago if I would be training for a marathon I would be like “NO FUGGIN WAY!”.
So why am I doing it now?
Because of these guys.
My EO Forum mates. They all decided they wanted to check something off the bucket list this year which includes a half marathon in a month’s time and a full marathon by the end of the year. That’s crazy because that takes training and while I enjoy cycling training… running is super boring to me.
Still… out of not letting my friends down I decided to do it.
So just yesterday we invited another friend named Keat (on the left in the picture above) to share some tips with us on how to prepare for a marathon. Keat is a season Iron Man, Marathoner and Century Rider. He has done everything.
He gave us a lot of tips but here’s what I’m going to list down.
- Have a running schedule
He came up with this running schedule for us. That is how many KM to run each week which include some weeks of less running for recovery.
The first thing I noticed about this schedule was “Wait.. when do we actually go for a practice run of 42KM ?”.
The answer though is never. Keat said that marathon runners don’t run 42 KM on their training rounds because it just takes too much out of the body. The most we ever run is 32KM and that’s like a couple of weeks before race day.
This was a paradigm shift for me because I thought running and endurance was all about doing more and more distance each time. What I learned though is that when it comes to training, it’s not about distance, it’s about consistency.
2. Vaseline up your nipples and your thighs.
It’s called chafing. Because apparently the friction you get on your nipples from running for hours causes your nipples to bleed. That’s pretty scary.
3. Stretches after a run are very important to prevent injury.
I do some stretching before a workout but I never really used to do a post run one because after a run I just feel like sitting down and chilling. That’s wrong. There are a lot of basic stretches we can find on YouTube and that’s something we gotta do to prevent injury.
4. Drink before you’re thirsty. Eat before you’re hungry.
On a long run we normally need to bring our calories with us that come in the form of gel, energy bars or fruit. Always eat or drink before we actually get hungry because by the time we do it’s too late. Keat also recommended recovery drinks like Endurox so I went out to buy some today.
5. How to trick the mind and fight the mental war
42KM is a long way to run and sometimes our mind gives up before our body does. Keat said what he did was to break down the whole route into 10KM and then 5KM and then 2KM segments so that it’s mentally easier to keep it up.
He also said that if we’re not running to get the best possible time and just want to complete then don’t be afraid to walk.
6. Don’t save on a good pair of running shoes
I learned this the hard way actually. I went for a 10KM fun run and ended up hurting the sole of my feet. So I searched online for the best running shoes in the world and bought any pair that I could find in Malaysia.
And that’s my key takeaways from the session.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space