Two-Hour Run with 12 Surges

It's Sunday today. After taking a motorcycle lesson at driving school, I had plenty of time, so I went home and watched Biwako Mainichi Marathon 2018. Shogo Nakamura met the qualifications for MGC, or Marathon Grand Championship, the selection process whereby three runners are eventually nominated to run at the Tokyo Olympics. Seeing elite runners' amazing fortitude motivated me. I changed into my running wear and hit the road.

I set off without setting specific mileage. But I wanted to run minimum two hours. But I didn't want to just run at my regular marathon pace. I wanted to include surges of 1, 2, and 4 minutes duration every five minutes in the middle part of this session.

The weather was good, and it was warm like in April. Winds were strong, and I sometimes had to run into them, but they felt more refreshing than disturbing. I took a scenic route around the Inbanuma Pond instead of running my neighborhood. I saw quite a few runners along the way. Some of them must be running the same race as mine, Sakura Asahi Kenko Marathon 2018 as it is a big local race.

When a surge lasts only a minute, you have very little to worry about in terms of running the entire one minute without having to stop at a traffic light. But when it comes to a 4-minute surge, you need almost one kilometer of uninterrupted road. So I chose areas that had as few traffic lights as possible. They were easily found in recently developing residential areas in the suburbs, and also on cycling roads around the pond.

As it was originally planned, I was able to run for a little longer than 2 hours and did some decent speed training with 4 sets of 3 different durations of surges with an interval of five minutes between surges.

The detail of the training today is as follows:
Run at marathon pace: 26:00
Surge: 1:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 2:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 4:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 1:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 2:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 4:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 1:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 2:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 4:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Food Break: 5:00
Surge: 1:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 2:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 5:00
Surge: 4:00.00
Run at marathon pace: 11:00
Total: 2:05:00

Again, I learned this training method in "From Last to First" written by Charlie Spedding of the UK, who says in the book that he originally got the idea from 1983 Boston Marathon winner Greg Meyer of the United States. So my hat is tipped for both.