In search of the 100k road
100k-Tiger v.s. New-born-calf
I still could not comprehend where did I get the guts to sign up the first Singapore Sundown 100k Ultra Marathon. Most likely it is my naiveness of underestimating the distance, like what the Chinese says... "a new born calf is not afraid of the tiger". I just hope that I did not make stupid decision, and hopefully the "100km-tiger will not kill the naive 1-marathon-finisher", finger-crossed.
Anyway, I signed up one expensive race (to my standard) with zero idea of how to train for it. I know how far is it... BY CAR, but have zero idea of how 'torturing' is it to my 38-year-old biological 'engine'.
The judgement day is on 25,June,2011. I have, to dated, about 155 days to learn, to plan, and to train for it. It is time to surf and dive into the sea of information on ultra-training.
In fact, the training started back on 19,Nov,2010, my life's maddest moment.
The Goals
As I am just a newbie in long distance running, I have to be realistic in my goal. Here are my goals in descending priority... being no.1 as the top priority and no.7 as the lowest priority.
1. No noticeable change in working and family life for the training.
2. To be at the starting line without injury.
3. To be able to follow an Ultra Training Schedule as closely as possible, while abiding Goal-1,2.
4. To stay alive at the 'end' of the race. The 'end' of the race could mean a DNF which I will try to avoid.
5. To finish the race distance alive.
6. To finish the race alive and injury free.
7. To finish the race alive, injury free, and within cut-off time.
Resources and Training Schedules
As there are many infomation about Ultramarathon Training in the Internet, so, I did NOT include links withOUT a schedule in the list. Anyway, I believe there are more traning schedules out there in the Internet, if you found one, please let me know. Thanks!
http://www.halhigdon.com/ultramarathon/ultramarathon2000.htm
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244--7556-1-2X3X4-4,00.html
http://www.100kmdelpassatore.it/__English%20version/Advice%20from%20the%20expert/Running%20programs%20for%20the%20100Km.html
http://ultrarunning.co.nz/content/100km-training-programme
Beside Internet resources, I have also consulted Chapter-12 of Hal Higdon's "How To Train". Of all the training schedules, I need to do a minimum of 5 runs per week with back-to-back LSD during the weekend. As "simple" as that (notice the inverted commas).
Before I managed to put this posting out, the reliable Jamie Pang had already summarized issues related to Ultramarathon training, in particular Twilight Ultra Challenge, in his post at http://www.jamiepang.com/blog/?p=3084. A very good read!
Best of all, Choi of http://seecube.blogspot.com/ suggests the minimum pace-strategy to finish Sundown Ultra 100k within cutoff time, at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124276614250582&v=wall, as summarized below:
From ChoiCC...
1) Run first 45k in 6hrs ~ 8min/km
2) Run another 27k (total in the race) in 4hrs ~ 9min/km
3) Walking of 28k (total in the race) in 5hrs ~ 10min/km pace ~ 6km/hr
The total time is 15hrs. So u hv 1hr buffer to play around just in case u slow...... down in 2 & 3. In theory, it is doable. But u gotta make sure u TRAIN for it.
The Essence
Though not mentioned directly, all the training plans centered around the most important ingredient of ultra-training: TIME.
At the peak, the minimum training plan requires a minimum of 15 hours of 'on-the-foot' time in a week. That excludes the time for the preparation, warming-up/cooling down. That is about the same amount of contact hours that a typical college/university "overloaded" full-time lecturer teaches in a week!
As a bread-winner, we need time to work, to rest, and to spend with family. But I remember very vividly what Mark William told us in the 2009 SCKLM running-clinic (I could bearly run 5k at that time)...
Where to Find Time
To 'Find Time'... we probably could not find time.
The second option is to make efficient use of time.
Daily, after waking up, I need about 45 minutes to get my body ready before hitting the road.
In addition, regardless of the length of run, I need another 30 minutes to warm-up/cool-down, travel and shower.
In total, regardless of the length of run, I need at least 1 hr 15 mins of "not on the feet time" for any run of any distance.
So, on the weekdays, it is better to run "one session" of 15km (1 hour 15mins of pre-amble) rather than "two sessions" of 7.5km (2 hours 30mins of pre-amble) in 2 days.
Conclusion, if I do not have enough time to complete 15km, I will abort/skip the regular weekday run. It is not time-efficient to run anything lower than, say, 15km.
But why 15km? For the time being, that is the distance that I can go comfortably on a regular basis without potentially harming myself. If everything work out well inline with Goal-1,2,3, I may increase the distance in future.
The First Lesson
To fulfill Goal-3, none of the run shall be done in sacrifying working and family life. Best of all, no one shall notice any change in my lifestyle. I shouldn't receive too many "missed call" at the end of my run. So, it is better to do training run while everyone else is normally sleeping. That means I shall run either at midnight or in dawn.
The obvious choice is to run in dawn.
Now, after 'working backward in time', I have to wake up at 4am to complete the 15km run and still make it on time to send the boys to school by 6:45am.
The first lesson, and probably one of the most challenging part, is to psycho myself that:
"It is normal to wake up at 4am, 5 days a week", or...
"It is normal to sleep at 9pm, 5 days a week, including all the weekend nights"!
I remember that a news article mentioned our famous Mr. SamyVellu (yes... that's our ex-MIC's president), on average, wakes up at 4:30am. So I think it is do-able.
Just a sharing on something INCREDIBLY similar (note the age of the man in the video, and the time he wakes up, what a co-incedence!!!)...
Before ending the post, something inspiring...
and the story goes on................
I still could not comprehend where did I get the guts to sign up the first Singapore Sundown 100k Ultra Marathon. Most likely it is my naiveness of underestimating the distance, like what the Chinese says... "a new born calf is not afraid of the tiger". I just hope that I did not make stupid decision, and hopefully the "100km-tiger will not kill the naive 1-marathon-finisher", finger-crossed.
Anyway, I signed up one expensive race (to my standard) with zero idea of how to train for it. I know how far is it... BY CAR, but have zero idea of how 'torturing' is it to my 38-year-old biological 'engine'.
The judgement day is on 25,June,2011. I have, to dated, about 155 days to learn, to plan, and to train for it. It is time to surf and dive into the sea of information on ultra-training.
In fact, the training started back on 19,Nov,2010, my life's maddest moment.
The Goals
As I am just a newbie in long distance running, I have to be realistic in my goal. Here are my goals in descending priority... being no.1 as the top priority and no.7 as the lowest priority.
1. No noticeable change in working and family life for the training.
2. To be at the starting line without injury.
3. To be able to follow an Ultra Training Schedule as closely as possible, while abiding Goal-1,2.
4. To stay alive at the 'end' of the race. The 'end' of the race could mean a DNF which I will try to avoid.
5. To finish the race distance alive.
6. To finish the race alive and injury free.
7. To finish the race alive, injury free, and within cut-off time.
Resources and Training Schedules
As there are many infomation about Ultramarathon Training in the Internet, so, I did NOT include links withOUT a schedule in the list. Anyway, I believe there are more traning schedules out there in the Internet, if you found one, please let me know. Thanks!
http://www.halhigdon.com/ultramarathon/ultramarathon2000.htm
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244--7556-1-2X3X4-4,00.html
http://www.100kmdelpassatore.it/__English%20version/Advice%20from%20the%20expert/Running%20programs%20for%20the%20100Km.html
http://ultrarunning.co.nz/content/100km-training-programme
Beside Internet resources, I have also consulted Chapter-12 of Hal Higdon's "How To Train". Of all the training schedules, I need to do a minimum of 5 runs per week with back-to-back LSD during the weekend. As "simple" as that (notice the inverted commas).
Before I managed to put this posting out, the reliable Jamie Pang had already summarized issues related to Ultramarathon training, in particular Twilight Ultra Challenge, in his post at http://www.jamiepang.com/blog/?p=3084. A very good read!
Best of all, Choi of http://seecube.blogspot.com/ suggests the minimum pace-strategy to finish Sundown Ultra 100k within cutoff time, at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124276614250582&v=wall, as summarized below:
From ChoiCC...
1) Run first 45k in 6hrs ~ 8min/km
2) Run another 27k (total in the race) in 4hrs ~ 9min/km
3) Walking of 28k (total in the race) in 5hrs ~ 10min/km pace ~ 6km/hr
The total time is 15hrs. So u hv 1hr buffer to play around just in case u slow...... down in 2 & 3. In theory, it is doable. But u gotta make sure u TRAIN for it.
The Essence
Though not mentioned directly, all the training plans centered around the most important ingredient of ultra-training: TIME.
At the peak, the minimum training plan requires a minimum of 15 hours of 'on-the-foot' time in a week. That excludes the time for the preparation, warming-up/cooling down. That is about the same amount of contact hours that a typical college/university "overloaded" full-time lecturer teaches in a week!
As a bread-winner, we need time to work, to rest, and to spend with family. But I remember very vividly what Mark William told us in the 2009 SCKLM running-clinic (I could bearly run 5k at that time)...
"if you do not have time... find time!"
Where to Find Time
To 'Find Time'... we probably could not find time.
The second option is to make efficient use of time.
Daily, after waking up, I need about 45 minutes to get my body ready before hitting the road.
In addition, regardless of the length of run, I need another 30 minutes to warm-up/cool-down, travel and shower.
In total, regardless of the length of run, I need at least 1 hr 15 mins of "not on the feet time" for any run of any distance.
So, on the weekdays, it is better to run "one session" of 15km (1 hour 15mins of pre-amble) rather than "two sessions" of 7.5km (2 hours 30mins of pre-amble) in 2 days.
Conclusion, if I do not have enough time to complete 15km, I will abort/skip the regular weekday run. It is not time-efficient to run anything lower than, say, 15km.
But why 15km? For the time being, that is the distance that I can go comfortably on a regular basis without potentially harming myself. If everything work out well inline with Goal-1,2,3, I may increase the distance in future.
The First Lesson
To fulfill Goal-3, none of the run shall be done in sacrifying working and family life. Best of all, no one shall notice any change in my lifestyle. I shouldn't receive too many "missed call" at the end of my run. So, it is better to do training run while everyone else is normally sleeping. That means I shall run either at midnight or in dawn.
The obvious choice is to run in dawn.
Now, after 'working backward in time', I have to wake up at 4am to complete the 15km run and still make it on time to send the boys to school by 6:45am.
The first lesson, and probably one of the most challenging part, is to psycho myself that:
"It is normal to wake up at 4am, 5 days a week", or...
"It is normal to sleep at 9pm, 5 days a week, including all the weekend nights"!
I remember that a news article mentioned our famous Mr. SamyVellu (yes... that's our ex-MIC's president), on average, wakes up at 4:30am. So I think it is do-able.
Just a sharing on something INCREDIBLY similar (note the age of the man in the video, and the time he wakes up, what a co-incedence!!!)...
Before ending the post, something inspiring...
and the story goes on................
posted by YS at 4:55 PM
4 comments
