Keep it simple

With the P.E.I. Marathon just three weeks away, the bulk of heavy training should be behind you

It’s now less than three weeks to the big day.

I’ve been asked to do three columns with some taper tips/ advice leading up to Marathon Weekend, Oct. 13-15.

These will be from my own experiences in the final few weeks leading up to a marathon, half marathon, 10k and 5k.

I’ve ran 68 full marathons and a few hundred half’s, 10’s and 5’s over the years and have developed routines along the way that have yielded great results come race day. My training partner of 13 years, Mike MacKinnon, and I like to keep it simple. We run hard, we run easy, we run hills, we do repeats, we strength train, we cross train. Nothing fancy, just do it.

The bulk of your heavy training days are behind you now but I feel this is not the time to go sedentary but to keep up decent mileage with a bit of speed mixed in, so at three weeks out I would have done my last long run of about 34-36 kilometres done at a pace about 25 seconds per kilometre slower than my anticipated race pace.

Since there are a few hills at the end of the P.E.I. Marathon course I would include some hills throughout this run as well as previous long runs. It’s a good idea to educate yourself on the terrain of run courses. After the long run, finish up with some strength training, load up on some protein (chocolate milk is my favourite), and call it a day.

Monday would be a rest day aside from some cross training. Tuesday through Friday my daily runs would range anywhere from 10 to 15 kilometres at an easy pace with some race pace intervals mixed in. Always use the first couple of kilometres to warm up. Again, I would be looking for a few hills to include. Some cross training and strength training as well but nothing too exhausting. Saturday was a day I’d be looking for a five- or a 10-kilometre race to force myself to push the pace and re-enforce weeks and months of training.

If there are no races, then I will do a good solid run to finish out the week.

One trick I liked was to try and run the last kilometre of any training run at exactly my goal race pace. It’s tough to do and I’d wonder how could I possibly do 42 of them. But you will come game day.

For the other race distances it was always the same training ideas aside from doing shorter mileage but usually more intensity in the runs. One drill that always worked well for my five- and 10-kilometre races was the 30/30 drill which was to go out for your run and after a warm up run 30 seconds hard followed by 30 seconds easy. Do 10 to 12 repeats of this a couple of times a week and you’ll see results. Now is also a great time to start catching up on your sleep, be conscious of keeping hydrated and practising healthy eating habits

That’s it for this week!