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It was truly disheartening to be stuck at the 2hr mark for the half marathon for over 3 years and ending 2016 with a horrible 5hr 20min marathon finish. This is after much hard training and trying to learn from running websites and books.
In July 2018, I thought,"I really need to get out of this stupid rut. Maybe I try coaching?". I sought out Coach Kien Mau from Mileage for a 18 weeks program to prepare for the November 2018 Osaka Marathon. Little did I know that it would be a start of an amazing 18 weeks journey of testing new frontiers and realizing my potential.
My report card:
After 8 weeks:
Improved 10km from 51min (set when I was much younger 10 years ago) to 47min
After 13 weeks:
Improved Half Marathon from 1hr 57min to 1hr 52min
After 18 weeks:
Improved Full Marathon from 5hr 20min to 3hr 55min (no kidding here and I didn't push hard)
What is amazing is that all these fitness leaps were made with just 2-3 training sessions a week (no kidding again). Of course, more sessions and higher mileage would have brought greater improvements. However, I just didn't have the time, so 2-3 times a week is all that I could run. The focus was on quality instead of quantity.
My teammates are a fun and energetic bunch. Sometimes we 'socialize' too much and Coach has to chase us off our feet to do our warm ups and start our training. We are always encouraging one another. Although each of us has our own customized training program, Coach always make it a point to get us to run together (at least for some of the segments). I am certainly looking forward to more years with Coach and my teammates.
I learnt the finer points of all things running, fitness and staying healthy. Running may seem like a simple activity but there is so much to it. When all these finer points are put together, running is so much more enjoyable - getting faster, getting healthier and staying injury free.
I really like that all our training programs are invididually tailored and dynamically adjusted. Every subsequent training session is based on how one coped with the previous sessions. Fitness is always built up in a gradual manner to stay injury-free and to avoid overtraining. In addition, if any of us needs any form of "fitness or race counselling", Coach is always just a phone call or a Whatsapp message away. Always friendly and always very helpful.
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