Be Like Eliud (and Brigid)

Second Sole Medina has had a series of running-related meetings featuring various speakers. This past Wednesday the topic was how to run faster, and the speaker was Renee Harden. Jim O’Connor asked how to finish strong in a race. His example was Eliud Kipchoge’s finishing kick during his barrier-busting sub-two-hour marathon this past Saturday.

Notice that I was careful to refer to it as ‘barrier-busting,’ and not ‘record-breaking,’ since it isn’t an official record. Regardless of its officialdom, no one can argue that it was a remarkable, even historic achievement to break such a barrier. A lot of us watched the run, and some of us (guess who) even sat and viewed the whole thing (it wasn’t a bit boring). Kipchoge’s finish was particularly electrifying. And we’re not even talking about the just-as-remarkable women's record set by Brigid Kosgei set at the Chicago Marathon the very next day.

We will leave the subject of Kipchoge’s shoes for another post.

Renee nailed it with her answer to Jim's question. How to finish strong as Kipchoge did? It's pure fitness, she said. I agree. You become as fit as you can be, avoid becoming injured, run your goal pace, and have just enough left to finish strong. I like this subject so much that I want to discuss it further.

Let's restrict this to marathons. It no-doubt also applies to half-marathons and ultras, but it's true in spades for the thons. Here's the thing: there is no feeling in the world like finishing strong in a marathon. Nothing. Nada.

Without diving too deep into the details, I would say that of my 112 marathons, perhaps between 20% and 30% had even to negative splits. This means the second half was close to the same or faster than the first half. These are the ones that feel good. The others decidedly do not. Some of those races with very negative splits probably shouldn't count, because the race was being run as a training exercise. So let's call it 15% to 25%. Therefore, something on the order of 75% of my marathons have been at best, arduous and difficult exercises in futility, and at worst, dreaded death marches.

Why do a thing that's not necessarily terribly good for you (running is, overdoing it with marathon running, not so much), is difficult, painful, frustrating, and has a 3 in 4 chance of turning out to be a miserable failure? That's easy. It's because, although those lows are indeed pretty darn low, the highs, those strong finishes, those even and negative splits, are so high, they're in the stratosphere. There are no other human experiences that can match them.

Let's say that I've convinced you. You want to run a marathon with even splits in which you finish strong and get that high of runners' highs. How do you do such a thing? We can start with Renee's answer: get fit. You won't be able to something in a marathon that you haven't trained for and therefore aren't capable of.

To add to that just a bit: don't get injured (Renee said this as well), run a lot, and run with intensity (you can follow a plan like Renee's or another one, but follow it!), determine, follow, and stay with your goal pace, and finally, train specifically for that final part of your race.

How to do that? Run the final 3-5 miles of a couple of your long runs at planned marathon pace. This isn't easy, but chances are that if you can't do this in training - at least once or twice during your training cycle, you won't be able to run the entire race - including the final miles - at that pace.

Don't give up. It may take 10,000 hours of training before you become proficient at marathoning. And just as important. Don't get injured. 

Finally, remember Dan's mantra: run a lot.