Mileage Maintenance

One of the few things I still remember from my marathon coach was the importance of maintaining a minimum mileage — a sustained period of mileage is essential for a runner to be accustomed to be in a “running mode” so that he can have a reasonable possibility to achieve the intended speed when running in demanding race like a marathon.

The minimum mileage recommended is 80km per week, for three months.

If you run five times a week (which is indeed quite hard if you have a full time job and family commitments, needless to say if you have some social circles to maintain at the same time), it means 12km on four days and 28km on the fifth (you need one day per week to experience (a.k.a. get used to the exhaustion of) long duration run which should exceed half-marathon).

So it means for someone really amateur and slow like me, it is quite a daunting task.

For the three years I was sort of serious to be trained for marathon running, I only managed to meet this minimum requirement for one marathon. In most of the other times, I can only meet, on average, half of the requirement, in my other ten or so marathon attempts during that period.

The result? I only achieved the then targeted finishing time (4 hours) once and that was also the time I had done the minimally required training.

I was on average half an hour slower for all other attempts.

So, perhaps my experience once again proved one of the most repeated teachings of all times — you got what you prepared yourself for.