Back into the Run

I started running marathons many years ago to reclaim the fitness I once had. When I had completed my 2nd Dan Black Belt Karate grading I was fit - very, very fit. The grading was an intense 3.5 hours. A few years later, I'm married, new job, and a little out of shape. I was working with a guy who had run a marathon in 3:35 hours. I thought to myself, "If I could do that then surely I would be fit again." And so the pursuit of 3:35 for a marathon began.

I have not been overly consistent with actually running marathons. For various reasons I have been kept from participating in races. My best race to date is 4:09 in Perth, Australia. That was a long time ago. About 3 years ago I ran the local marathon here in Mysore, India. I was ill prepared and hadn't run well since moving to India 5 years ago. I ran it in just under 5 hours.

Just after this marathon I changed my approach to fitness. Rather than just basing it on my marathon time (and karate) I started to diversify my fitness. I decided to drop my body fat from about 25.5 percent to 18 percent. I achieved this in 12 weeks through diet. About the same time I came across Mark Lauren's book, 'You are your own gym'. I added this to my new fitness approach. I was astounded with how weak I was, especially in the back, and I was equally asto
unded in how quickly I improved. I got hooked on strength training. For the past 2 years I have been making steady gains putting on about 6kg of lean mass.

The desire for running marathons remains and I want to run this years Kaveri Trail Marathon here in Mysore. Preparing for a marathon is very different from strength training. The approach is different. The exercises are different. The diet is different.

In marathon prep it's about going the distance, lasting, not quitting, pacing myself so that I still have fuel in the tank to finish. In strength training it's about hitting failure, intense effort for a short period of time, giving it everything you have for 40 secs and then resting - lots of resting. The approaches are opposite.

Throughout this coming marathon I want to train for a good time without losing my muscle gains. This means 4:30 on the clock. This isn't a fast time but it will be PB over the course. I say 4:30 but what I really mean is 4:08, a new marathon PB. I'll train for a sub-4hr marathon knowing that if it's tougher on the day then I have a good 30 min buffer.

My approach is going to involve 3 runs per week - perhaps not enough but I shall see how I progress and adjust accordingly. For the first month I am going to build 2 of the runs from 5k to 10k. On the third day I'm going to base it on time and build running into the run. For the first month it will be 2 hours and from then on it will be 3 hours. Typically, a marathon program will have a long run and each week one would add kms and therefore more time. I have used this approach and it works well, however, I think time will be a better approach. This means that I'll walk for 2 hours the first time. The second time I'll walk for 1.5 hours and run for 30 mins. I'll continue this until I get to 2 hours and then I'll move to 3 hours and start off with walking for 1.5 hours and build up. I'll also include yassos for speed.

For now I'm in a cutting phase which is not conducive to marathon prep. What I'm trying to juggle here is to disrupt the strength training as little as possible while preparing for a marathon. These are my stats:

Male, 45 years old.
Weight: 78.9 kg
Body fat Caliper reading of 9, approx. 14% body fat.
Lean weight: 67.8kg

Goal: achieve a PB on the Kaveri Trail Marathon without losing any lean weight.