As the day ends, we can conclude our preparation for the Marathon this Sunday.
I've not said this, but I was battling a nagging ache on my left leg. In fact, the truth is my body was hurting like hell for the past week, due to my last gym session and worsen by the high intensity soccer session. Yea, I admit if I could have done thing differently, I would have listened to my body and rest instead of playing through the pain.
Well I am glad to say, the pain has subsided after days of sufficient rest and lots of muscular balm. It is still not 100%, but I will be fully healed by Sunday. I only fear that doing a Marathon straight after healing for days could lead to unwanted repercussions. Well there's no way I'm no-showing on Sunday, so be it if things turn out bad.
Well my carbo-loading is going well. Or so I hope. If you consider the Anbiry Baburu we had at Ben Ten which was IMPOSSIBLE to finish OMG (Thanks to Mel the superman who finish like 3/4 singlehandedly). Been taking in loads of carbs, either wanted or unwanted I didn't care and gorged down litres and litres of water. It's forced, but it's necessary. Tomorrow, I will be having pasta with grilled chicken @ Astons as my final meal before the race.
Ok, drifted off to FB for a while but let's finish up the post.
FINAL MARATHON STRATEGY:
Employ negative splits strategy.
Start the first half of the race, i.e. 1K to 21K, @ 10-20 seconds per km slower that target marathon pace. Simply put, go at 5:50 - 5:59 from 1K to 21K.
For 21K to 32K, increase pace no matter what. I've already emphasize this, if I want to even remotely touch 4-hours, I must increase it to RMP. For sub-4, this means from 21K to 32K, or 11K, I must go at 5:40. If I go any second slower, 4-hour is a goner. It is so important in this part of the race, as my body hits the droning period from 21K onwards, and it's the best time to make up time. If we start too early @ RMP, we might burn out. If we try to go @ RMP only in the ending moments, we have to ask, can we do it? What if we hit the wall; a high possibility? So I concur to go at RMP from around 20K to 33K as the best period.
After that, we face the inevitable 20 mile mark. Well I've done it before, and I've prepared already. So I don't see myself bonking there. If things progress as I intend, and hopefully I still have the state of mind to think properly, I will have to run the final 10K at, get this--52 minutes! *Gulps*. Yea that is intimidating and honestly I don't know if I can do it. But that is assuming we did the first 21K at 6 minute. If I do the first 21K at 5:50, things seem easier because I only have to do the last 10K at 55 minutes with change to spare. So I can only say, the last 10K is a BIG question mark, and I can only know how I will go at that moment. But the possible scenarios are; I bonk and just try to finish, I am behind time and I aim for 4:10 finish, I hit runner's high and I go at 10K pace for a while, ultimately finishing just outside 4 hrs, or the best scenario, I run a perfect Marathon and I hit 4 hrs.
We shall see, that's all I can say.
Still gotta wash my 2XU and drink 2 more cups of water! CYA.
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