There are now about five weeks left till the Berlin Marathon, which takes place on 16th September.

And for the past couple of months I have been following a marathon training plan laid out by Coached Fitness.

Coached is a heart rate training programme 

Founded by former Kiwi triathlete Ben Pulham, Coached is a heart rate training programme for both runners and triathletes that helps you to track, optimise and enjoy your training.

There are five heart rate zones under Coached and these are Easy, Steady, Moderately Hard, Hard and Very Hard. The Easy and Steady Zones are the aerobic zones, while Hard and Very Hard are the anaerobic Zones. Moderately Hard is the grey Zone, in between aerobic and anaerobic.

Most athletes, according to Ben, are doing the majority of their runs in the Moderately Hard to Hard Zones, when they should be running in Easy and Steady. As a result, they have a developed anaerobic capacity and an underdeveloped aerobic capability.

Three Stages of Training 

For the Coached training plan, this has three different stages. And runners can choose whether to train four, five or six days a week.

My training plan is set to six days a week.

Base

The first stage, which covers roughly the first three weeks, is the Base training phase. 

This stage is to build your aerobic capacity, so that you will be better equipped to handle the more intense training in the latter stages of the plan.

For the Base phase, I have been doing mostly runs in my Easy and Steady heart rate zones. 

The runs had began quite short and easy to complete, being about an hour each, including the Long Run in my Easy Zone, which was just one hour and 20 minutes.

Strength

The fourth week was when the second phase, the Strength phase, of the Coached programme began. 

This is the longest phase of the programme, lasting about six to eight weeks. Currently I am still on the Strength phase, where the Coached programme likes to put you on hills. 

Besides the mandatory Hill Run that we are supposed to complete every week, there are a few Endurance Runs, which last approximately one and a half hours, and Long Runs, which gradually build from about one hour and 20 minutes to three hours, to be completed on hills. 

According to Coached, hills are basically speed-work in disguise, in that they tire the legs due to the resistance, but without taxing the lungs, thus allowing for a faster recovery between sessions.

As I live in the Eastern part of Singapore though, I admit that it is quite difficult to find rolling hills where I am. 

So for these Hill runs, I have been heading to the Marina Barrage to complete loops there. 

It does get quite mental sometimes, especially for the longer hill sessions, but I suppose that marathon running is about building mental resilience as well as physical strength.

Besides Hill Runs, the Coached programme also strongly believes in strength sets during this phase. So we have been tasked with completing sets such as planks, flutter kicks, burpees and lunges, in between our runs. I realise that this has also been the case for a couple of Long Runs in the programme. 

The goal of completing such sessions is to train you to run on tired legs, which you will be no doubt, experiencing in the later stages of a marathon.

Specifics 

I have yet to enter the Specifics phase of my Coached training programme. This only begins from Week 11, and this phase focuses on fine-tuning my speed, with long runs to be partially completed at race pace, and faster interval sessions that are to be done in my harder heart rate zones, Hard and Very Hard. 

The longest run in the programme is in the Specifics phase, about three weeks out from race day, when we have to run for about three hours, beginning in the Easy Zone and building to race pace after the halfway mark.

Earlier on in the programme, the track sessions had been easier, with Moderately Hard being the highest heart rate zone that we were supposed to attain. The reason for this is because the body learns speed very quickly, so you do not really need to inject speed till the latter stages of a training plan. 

But I admit that I am not looking forward to these hard track runs, because I have become accustomed to easy runs with Coached and I tend to get quite breathless rather easily if I have to push myself hard during my training sessions.

Taper

And as per my Coached training plan for the Berlin Marathon, my official Race Taper starts about 10 days prior to my race. 

So it looks as though I will have to complete a couple of these sessions when I am in Berlin – this is good though because it will help me acclimatise to running in the weather there, so that I will be able to fine-tune my race strategies and appropriate pace for marathon day.

Nevertheless I am definitely looking forward to the taper sessions, because this means shorter sessions. I will be able to finally catch up on my sleep, as I will not need to commit to running for so long.

Coached has helped me to attain personal best timings in my last two key marathon races, at Gold Coast in 2017 and then again at Nagoya in March this year. 

So by following my Coached training plan, I hope that I will be able to reset my personal best again in Berlin, come September 16. We shall see.

Get Coached Too

Are you keen to Get Coached and follow a structured training programme too, for your next Marathon or Triathlon Race? 

Get Coached Here.

Psst, and here is a promo code.

To get ONE FULL MONTH of free trial, simply use the code PC0617 when you sign up with Coached.