For the longest time, I was targeting a sub two hour half marathon as the ultimate goal for the distance.
I first achieved my sub two hour goal at the Great Eastern Women’s Run 2017.
Sub 1:50 in Kuala Lumpur
But beyond that, I never dreamed or imagined that sub 1:50 would be within my reach for the 21.1km distance.
But I ran a half marathon in 1 hour 47 mins 10 sec in the 21.1km race at the Kuala Lumpur Standard Chartered Marathon (KLSCM) 2022.
Kuala Lumpur has the same tropical, hot and humid weather as Singapore.
What is Coached training about
My achievement was made possible thanks to Coached, the training programme which I have been training under since 2016.
Coached is a training programme for runners and triathletes founded by former New Zealand professional triathlete, Ben Pulham, which allows amateur athletes to optimise, track and enjoy their training through five key areas – training, nutrition, mindset, recovery and race execution.
Personalised training for athletes
Coached is different and refreshing compared to many training programmes. This is because Coached tailors personalised training programmes to athletes that fit their experience, aptitude and abilities.
As well, Coached does not smash athletes. According to Ben, training programmes that put high pressure on athletes through numerous weekly hard interval and challenging tempo sessions is ineffective and unsustainable, leading to injury and long-term ill-effects.
Instead, the Coached process is holistic and a focused form of preparation, that looks after the health of athletes and allows them to stay injury-free.
I set the KLSCM half as a “B” race leading up to the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (full distance), the latter being my “A” race for this training cycle.
A “B” race has a shorter taper of about five days, as compared to an “A” race, which is two weeks. So your legs therefore may feel more fatigued going into race day.
What was my training like
My training plan was set to five runs a week. This is an online programme and comprises of the following sessions.
- Speed Run – Short but sharp interval run. Usually about 45 to 60 mins long.
- Recovery Run – an easy short run of about 45 minutes
- Stamina Run – Mid-distance tempo/race pace interval run. Ranges from about an hour at the beginning of the plan to just under two hours when you are peaking.
- Steady Run – Usually about an hour. A low intensity run targeted at clearing lactate and develop your aerobic fitness.
- Long Run – The key to half and full marathon training. Must be run at an easy conversational pace. Generally done over hills with Coached to generate resistance and add fatigue to the legs. Longest run builds to about 2 hours 50 minutes. Shortest is about 1 hour 20 mins at the beginning of the training plan.
If I wanted to or felt like squeezing in an extra day of running, I would make sure that the additional run is kept short and easy, no more than an hour at my aerobic heart rate, so as not to tax or tire out my body. Otherwise I was grateful for the rest days.
My Speed Runs were done in-person sessions in Singapore at the Coached group training sessions at the Sports Hub, because I need people to push me along when it comes to interval running.
While you do need to be in Singapore to attend the in-person coaching, which are purchasable via buying add-on credits on top of the online training fee, the online programme can be done from anywhere in the world.
However, the remainder of the runs in the plan were done mostly solo. I often did my long runs with friends when it didn’t rain, because when you are running long distances, having company can be a tremendous help mentally.
For the easy runs, the Coached training programme stresses that you really must slow right down and run easy, based on your heart rate. If your heart rate rises above your easy cap, you need to slow down, or even walk to bring it back down.
Many runners often make the mistake of doing their easy runs too hard and their hard runs not hard enough, thereby all their training winds up in a “grey zone” and they therefore do not see improvements.
Likewise, you have to actually run hard for your hard sessions. For hard runs with Coached, these are based on effort and sustainable pace rather than heart rate, because the hard intervals are very short and as heart rate takes time to rise, inaccuracies will result if you use heart rate for hard runs.
Strength training sets
Besides runs, the coached programme also included strength training sets. You can choose how many strength sets to add into your programme on top of the runs. The minimum is one per week.
Coached’s strength sets are mostly body weight and core training exercises which can be done in the comfort of your own home, such as squats, lunges, planks, flutter kicks and so on.
Conclusion
Interested? You can find out more about Coached here and upon sign up, new customers can get an additional 30-days FREE trial on top of your membership.
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