ROBERTO

My first attempt at the marathon distance was in Singapore in 1994, before Standard Chartered became a sponsor. I was in the process of moving up in distance in an effort to qualify for the Olympic Games, and the marathon was my best chance to punch my ticket to Atlanta.

At that point I was living in Hong Kong, and on 1 June of that year I had not even run as far as a half marathon in competition. Still, I was fit, in September and October I ran a few half marathons in under 1:10, and thought I would make my marathon debut in December. Singapore was nearby, and a competitor of mine – who ended up marrying former Singapore marathon record holder Toh So Liang – was planning to run.

Those of you who know Hong Kong are aware that in summer, the weather can be not so different to the heat and humidity we have here in Singapore year-round, but although I had been to Singapore before on business, I had never tried to run a marathon here.

Long story short, I went out with the leaders, felt pretty comfortable through halfway in around 1:11 (the winner ran 2:22:40), and at 32K my head exploded. All of a sudden I felt incredibly overheated, and I stopped and sat on a bench in a bus shelter, done for the day.

After a few minutes, a Danish runner stopped and sat next to me. He was silent for a moment, then said, “It’s pretty hot.” [He used a different word than “pretty”.]

“Yeah,” I replied.

With the help of a kindly bus company supervisor, we managed to find our way back to the finish, and that – a DNF – was my marathon debut.

Long story short, I ran a bunch of other marathons over the following 16 months, and although I finished under 2:30 around half a dozen times, I didn’t get my Olympic qualifying time, and I didn’t go to Atlanta.

One of the marathons I ran during my quest for Olympic glory (hahaha) was London. Without a qualifying time (this was my first race after my unsuccessful effort in Singapore) I did not get an elite starting position, and unfortunately, around four weeks before race day I was diagnosed with anaemia. Still, I had booked my ticket and I figured I might as well give it a try.

As a non-elite runner, I not only started behind the elite group, but also behind around several thousand English Amateur Athletic Association (AAA) runners who through their club membership had been given priority start positions by the race organisers. While some of these runners were among Britain’s top sub-elite runners, others were ordinary club members, and I would have to overtake them.

I made my way to the front of the “ordinary runners” pen, right behind the AAA pen, and waited for the start.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been caught up in a crush of people, such as on Halloween last year in Seoul’s Itaewon district, or also last year at Kanjuruhan Stadium in Malang in East Java, but it’s not a comfortable feeling, and before the start of that London Marathon, in my section of the crowd I felt extremely unsafe.

I was right at the front of the section, pushed up against a fence, and at one point the runners behind me started to surge forward. I felt myself crushed against the fence, and the people around me, and although I tried to hold my position, I felt powerless. Not a good feeling.

The race was not much better. Foolishly, after the gun I shot off down the road in pursuit of the sub-elites I thought I should have been running with, and I ran under 1:10 for the first half and slower than 1:25 for the anaemic second half. It was … memorable.

Some years later, I entered the Tokyo Marathon (the first one, back when it started in Shinjuku and was held in February rather than March). Again, I did not have an elite bib, and I waited for nearly two hours in a near-freezing downpour to stake out a decent starting position. Not a good feeling. I lasted until 17 kilometres, and retired with a strained calf muscle and a mild case of hypothermia.

A last story: back in the 90s I had an elite starting position in Sydney’s City to Surf Race and it was a superb experience. Around 10 years later, I was scheduled to be in Sydney on business and a client asked me if I wanted his Sydney office to enter us in the race. “Sure,” I said.

Perhaps obviously, my client’s colleagues did not secure elite starting positions for us, and I was in wave six and my client was in wave 12. With around 80,000 runners, City to Surf is one of the world’s largest running races, and it took me 11 of the race’s 14 kilometres to work my way through the crowds in front of me and be able to run freely. I certainly didn’t feel that my life was in danger, but it was not a good feeling.

Bringing me to my point.

I am very much over mass participation races.

When I lived in Hong Kong, I was for several years the race director of the China Coast Marathon, a scenic and tough race along the edge of the High Island Reservoir in Sai Kung Country Park. We would get several thousand runners every year, but you could turn up on race morning, pay the entry fee and get a bib. The difference between your “gun time” and “chip time” was less than a minute, no matter where you started. Compared to the Hong Kong Marathon, which is mostly held on the elevated expressway out to Tsing Yi Island, the China Coast Marathon is extremely scenic.

Another scenic marathon I ran was in Japan, the Ogasa Kakegawa Marathon (now known as the Kakegawa Shincha Marathon), in Shizuoka, Japan. I remember one aid station staffed entirely by uniformed Little League baseball players, shouting “Gambatte kudasai!” and serving the runners locally grown strawberries. Yes, please!

In Europe, I ran the Vigaranomaratona, in Ferrara, Italy. Ferrara is not far from Bologna, and is a World Heritage Site. On the day I ran, the sky was as blue as the Virgin Mary’s gown in a Renaissance painting, and the city – encircled by almost 10 kilometres of 500-year-old brick walls – was unforgettably beautiful. And I even managed to win enough prize money to pay for a few post-race beers!

On Pangkor Island one year for a holiday, I ran past a sign advertising an upcoming road race. When I got back to my hotel, I asked the front desk if they could enter me, and they did. On the day, I managed to finish first in the round-the-island race, winning a pair of (domestic) air tickets, a very large bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a bunch of other sponsor-provided goodies including a gigantic tin of Milo. I was flying home that afternoon, so I gave away all my prizes, but it was a fun event, and I won’t ever forget the first time I walked (up a very steep hill – walking was as fast as running!) in a race!

Last year I ran a couple of trail races – The Mount Tam Trail Run and the Woodside Ramble – in the San Francisco Bay area. One was a 30K and the other, a 35K. Both courses ran through redwood forests and offered occasional views of the Pacific Ocean. And both races (at the distances I chose to run) had fewer than 100 finishers.

Sure, I didn’t get a “Six Star Medal” for participating in any of those races, but I had a great time, pushed myself to my limits (always!), and spent a lot less money than I would have to enter the New York City Marathon (for overseas runners, the entry fee is almost S$500!). And I didn’t have to enter a lottery!

I understand why people want to run “the marathon majors” (marketing FTW!), and I will continue to enter races in places I want to travel to (I ran the Prague Marathon once just because I wanted to visit Prague), but at this point I’m looking for small local races, not the mass participation events.

Last year, when we were in New York for Christmas, my son, then 17, said he wanted to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I don’t know what you know about Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but take it from this New Yorker – you don’t want to be there.

I suggested that instead, we run the New York Road Runners Midnight Run, which starts in Central Park on New Year’s Eve. My son was up for it, and although there were apparently 5,000 runners entered, our predicted finish times put us near the front at the start.

I had briefed my son on the course (over 35 years before, I had won the New York City 4-Mile Championship on the same course, hahaha), and to the accompaniment of fireworks, we set off. After less than one kilometre, I did not see my son running with me anymore, and figured he had dropped back.

I continued to push as hard as I could, eventually finishing in the top 100 and winning my age group (old), and as I finished, I wondered how long I would have to wait for my son. I turned around to look for him, and he was RIGHT BEHIND ME.

“Erm, were you right behind me the whole race,” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Did you think about coming past me?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was comfortable where I was.”

Obviously the apple rolled pretty far away from the tree when it comes to competitiveness!

But that’s not the point. The point is that we had an amazing experience running a (relatively) small race rather than one with a cast of tens of thousands, chosen by lottery from among hundreds of thousands of applicants.

I’m not saying you need to turn your back on the World Marathon Majors, the Ironman-backed “UTMB World Series” and other mass participation races; I’m just saying that small – and their organisers and volunteers – races are awesome, and that you should think about running more of them!

This past summer, ultrarunner Courtney Dauwalter won a grand slam of 100-mile races – The Western States, the Hardrock 100, and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) – breaking course records in each, and finishing over three hours, cumulatively, ahead of her nearest competitors. No ultrarunner has been as dominant since the legendary Yiannis Kouros, who had no equal from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s.

"In general, I am pretty tired." - Courtney Dauwalter before her UTMB triumph.

Well, yeah.

If you have been a competitive distance runner, you have probably done double sessions, i.e. two runs in a day.

My biggest training week as a runner was at university when while preparing for cross-country season, I ran 190 kilometres in a single week. The last run of that week was almost 30 kilometres, and during the final 10 kilometres, my training partner Dan and I ran alone down an empty road through a forest. We were very, very fit, but we were also very, very tired, and with around five kilometres to go, running at a pace of around three minutes per kilometre, Dan threw back his head and screamed, "We're gonna f**kin' make it!"

We did make it, and I will never forget that week of mostly double sessions, and that long run at the end. A few weeks later, Dan quit the cross country team, and a few weeks after that, he made his marathon debut, running 2:18, I think, to place second in the Ocean State Marathon in Rhode Island, U.S.A.

There is some debate about the value of double sessions, but it's indisputable that to run far in races, you have to run far in training. I don't mean that to run a marathon, you have to complete training runs of 42.195 kilometres; I mean that in the months preceding your race, you need to strengthen your legs and heart, and build the oxygen-carrying capacity of your blood. The only way to do this is by training, and to a great extent, the best way to do this is by running (versus cycling, swimming or other cross-training).

The thing is, running can be tiring. As we know!

If you’ve seen photos of yourself racing (e.g. from those race photo services that snap pix of every competitor, then try to sell you prints), you will have observed that your running form almost always looks better toward the beginning of a race. The reason for the deterioration in your form is tiredness. And it’s not only you – the elites suffer the same problem.

A few years ago, after Nike ran its Breaking2 project in which world record holder Eliud Kipchoge tried to break the 2-hour barrier for the marathon, the company released data showing that the main performance metrics – VO2 max, lactate threshold and running economy – did not differ significantly among the runners (Kipchoge and his pacers, who were all super-elite marathon runners themselves). There must be another factor, the researchers surmised, and they suggested fatigue resistance.

A subsequent study of elite cyclists in a five-day race called the Tour of the Alps reached a similar conclusion: fatigue resistance is what separates the elite from the merely very good. The cycling study compared the results of a team of elite under-23 riders with two teams of established pros, and you may not be surprised to hear that the pros had more of what it takes to be the best.

There are two aspects to fatigue resistance.

One is physical, and you acquire it through training. Train more (and sleep enough and eat properly), and you can build the muscle strength that allows you to run farther at speed. Nutrition is an important part of recovery, as is injury avoidance.

In-race nutrition is also important. Research has proven that running low on carbohydrates diminishes fatigue resistance, i.e. you get tired (and slower) faster, and elite endurance athletes – such as Kipchoge – consume exponentially more calories during races than amateurs, who almost always underfeed themselves. Amateurs (and many pros) are in general not well-educated about performance nutrition and think, “A gel an hour is good.” In fact, you should probably be consuming a minimum of three gels an hour. Will that upset your stomach? Almost certainly not. Try it in training and see if increasing your calorie intake affects your performance.

The second aspect of fatigue resistance is mental strength, with its links to motivation.

Some years ago I defeated my training partner in the first leg of a road race series, and afterwards, he said in a television interview, “The outcome will be different next time.” Well, that pissed me off, and I was determined that the outcome would not be different the next time.

The only problem was that the next race was scheduled for the morning after I was due to return from a trip to Brazil (a 40-hour journey). I knew I would be tired, but I was what they call “highly motivated”.

I got home from the airport at around midnight, slept like a corpse for six hours, and got up to teach my training partner a lesson, which I did. I absolutely crushed him in that race, and although I was fit, I attribute my victory almost entirely to desire.

[Bonus takeaway: don’t piss off your competitors unnecessarily!]

Returning to science, research has shown that in many cases, there is no physiological reason for performance declines in highly trained athletes (within reasonable parameters). The muscles are working fine, but the pace starts to lag.

The main theory explaining this is that our brains are designed to try to protect us from ourselves: it sets us to run at a pace it believes – or knows – will get us to the finish line. The factors governing the brain’s decision include the environment (how hot and/or humid is it?), how much training we have put in, and how motivated are we?

Here in Singapore, the big external factor affecting performance is heat, and we all know people who get “psyched out” by the heat. Visitors, certainly, but I know plenty of Singaporeans who complain about the heat.

In the running context, it seems to me that many of these people are giving up before they start. After all, the weather is the same for everyone. Sure, it’s impossible to run a marathon as fast in Singapore as it is in Berlin, but if you want a personal best, fly to Berlin. If you want to perform well against your peers locally, and give your best effort, all you have to do is put on your game face.

So what can you do to increase your fatigue resistance?

One, make sure you are well-trained for the event you’re targeting. That’s not complicated: you just have to put in the work, and be smart about recovery – basically, take care of your sleep and nutrition.

Two, get tough.

Set goals that are motivating, but achievable, then tell yourself you can achieve those goals, and in your mind, review (repeatedly) the steps you will be taking on the way to meeting (and surpassing!) them.

An important part of “getting tough” is being confident in your preparations.

I’ve run against world record holders, and been under no illusions that I had any chance of winning. My goal was to do my best.

[Full disclosure: I’ve always been pleased when I overtook a runner wearing a Kenya or Ethiopia vest. Sure, that guy was probably having the worst day of his running career, but still.]

All you can do is your best.

A couple of years ago, I struggled with a hamstring injury that would just not heal. The problem was caused by my failure to do enough (or any) physiotherapy following an Achilles tendon surgery, after which I lost significant muscle mass in my right calf. I was able to run again fairly soon, but incurred a series of injuries on my "strong" side, obviously as a result of overcompensating. I could see this in the uneven wear patterns on the soles of my running shoes.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty terrible at following through with non-running strength and flexibility exercises, even when they are strongly recommended by my physiotherapist. However, last year I had an experience that not only solved my hamstring problem, but also made me think about running injuries in general.

What was my experience? I rented a house for a couple of months in a seaside community south of Cape Town, where there is a four-kilometre-long beach on which I was able to run every day. After two months of running on sand (hard sand at low tide, soft sand at high tide), my hamstring had completely healed and my entire lower body musculoskeletal system felt much stronger.

Seems obvious: soft surfaces mean fewer injuries, right?

Well, although it certainly felt that way to me, the evidence is far from clear.

Over 10 years ago, American journalist Christopher McDougall published a seminal book titled "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen", launching a barefoot/minimalist running boom that is still going strong. In researching the book, McDougall spent time with the native Mexican Tarahumara tribe, noting that its runners traveled long distances on foot wearing only thin sandals and avoided injury. McDougall became an advocate for barefoot or minimalist running, positing publicly that modern cushioned running shoes are a major cause of running injury.

Interesting if true, as they say.

One thing that differentiates you and me from Tarahumara runners, very probably, is that you and I run quite a lot on hard surfaces – concrete and asphalt – and the Tarahumara run on dirt. And as mentioned above, soft surfaces mean fewer injuries, right?

Unfortunately, for those looking for a silver bullet with which they can eliminate injury downtime from their training calendar, there is not much evidence to support the theory that soft surfaces mean fewer injuries.

There are plenty of research showing how hard and soft surfaces affect running form, but not so much about actual injuries.

What seems clear from the research (quite a lot of it funded by running shoe companies) is that the human body is designed to adapt to different conditions; our strides can and do change depending on the density of the surface we're running on. On my beach in South Africa, for example, it was obvious to me that running on sand shortened my stride (push-off is much tougher on sand), but it was equally obvious that my Achilles tendon was being stretched (though not necessarily stressed) more than it would be on a harder surface like a road.

The same is true for trail running. If you are a regular trail runner, you have heard a million road runners explain to you that they don't run trails "because I've got weak ankles." Well, yes, maybe, but if you start running on trails, the highly variable foot landing and takeoff positions will build strength in your ankles and feet, and eventually you won't have weak ankles!

Biomechanist Dr. Benno Nigg has noted that despite a century of development in athletic shoe manufacturing, injury rates among runners have not decreased significantly. In an interview last year with Podiatry Management (yes I know, I have an eclectic reading list!), Dr. Nigg said,

“When I was a young biomechanist, I thought that impact and pronation were the two factors for the development of injuries. I wanted to go out and prove that this is true. When we first researched on impact, it came to the point where I had to say that I did not find the result I expected. If you look at everything that has been published in the literature about impact forces and injuries, the sum seems to be that impact forces are not the reason for injuries. From a purely statistical point of view there is no evidence that impact forces during running are the reason for injuries.”

What is supported by research is that different surfaces (and speeds) cause runners to run differently. The reason seems to be that our bodies seek out a running form that is as comfortable as possible.

Running faster on harder surfaces, we tend to run more up on our toes (i.e. more on the midfoot) than we do when we run slowly on softer surfaces, on which we tend to increase our heel striking.

Is this “good”? Or “bad”?

Neither, suggests Dr. Nigg, who says that the important aspects of performance and/or injuries are more related to individual running style. He says,

“From an energy point of view, we do well when we are in a preferred running situation. Or maybe the other way around, we feel comfortable when the energy situation is good. One should run in any way that feels comfortable, whether this is with shoes or barefoot, and probably one should not run in a situation that is not comfortable.”

There is also plenty of research demonstrating that increased chance of injury is associated with – surprise, surprise – higher weekly mileage and a history of previous running injuries (i.e. how bulletproof your body is, or isn’t).

I know from experience that my body isn’t “bulletproof”. Some of this is probably due to my running style; some of it is probably due to DNA. I’m not sure. It seems clear that there is no silver bullet that can prevent injuries. What works for Christopher McDougall may not work for me, and vice versa. What works for me may not work for you, and vice versa.

And so, perhaps it wasn’t the soft sand in Cape Town that healed my hamstring. Perhaps it was that I had no specific training or racing goals, and most days simply went out to enjoy a 10km or 20km run in a beautiful setting. I felt “comfortable”, in Dr. Nigg’s words.

Or perhaps it was the soft sand!

Recently I spent quite a lot of time with a friend who is a skinny cyclist. My friend is relatively new to serious cycling, and still learning about the culture, but he shared his observation that many of the riders in his (Copenhagen) club spend quite a lot of time talking about which expensive bits of gear they want to buy in order to shave weight off their bike set-ups.

My friend, a physician, said, “Almost all of these guys have five or ten kilos they could lose easily, and a few guys are carrying much more than that.”

I want to be clear that I was speaking about elite athletes, and elite performance. Recreational athletes (and indeed, semi-professional athletes) can and should compete – in running, cycling, rock climbing etc. – at any weight that makes them comfortable.

Last year I had a conversation with a female semi-professional runner in which I expressed the view that in most running events, body weight is a factor in performance and it is important to maintain a weight that maximizes the runner’s strength to weight ratio. She strongly opposed my view, and eventually we agreed to disagree. But of course, she’s wrong. 🙂

But to stand on the podium, you need to put all the pieces together – nutrition, injury prevention and training – and you need to do those things better than all of your competitors. In running (and rock climbing), you’re basically battling gravity. In cycling, you’re fighting gravity and wind resistance.

At the same time, everyone’s body is different, and every competitive athlete knows that there is a fine line between arriving at peak fitness (and its associated body weight) and tipping over into illness or injury.

Back when I was a competitive athlete (so long ago that we were measuring our performances with sundials), I could certainly feel when I was approaching peak fitness, and more often than not I pushed too hard (either in training or by burning the other end of the candle) and slipped into illness or injury. For women especially, a too-low body mass index (BMI) can result in health problems including the loss of period and increased risk of bone fractures (in runners especially, stress fractures).

It’s tough to navigate that fine line, and many professional athletes have discovered the hard way that they can’t eat anything they want and stay competitive.

And of course it’s not only women who struggle with finding a body weight that is optimal for elite performance.

New Orleans Pelicans power forward Zion Williamson, who in 2019 was one of the NBA’s most eagerly anticipated draft picks in recent years, has struggled mightily with injuries and with his weight. Many people think the two things are related.

On television, NBA legend Charles Barkley, no stranger to a box of donuts, said to his colleague and fellow NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, also no stranger to a box of donuts, “[Zion] looks like me and you had a baby.”

Barkley went on to say, “I’m joking and I’m serious. Moses Malone once said to me I was fat and lazy. And I started to cry a little bit, but it was a turning point in my career. [Zion is] already hurt. You should not be getting hurt when you’re young. He’s already had surgeries on his legs, and now he’s got a broken foot. He’s going to have to learn that even when you’re hurt you’re going to have to control your eating, because when guys get hurt, when they come back, you’re trying to get in shape, if you’re putting all that stress on your knees and your feet, you’re just going to keep getting hurt.”

Barkley’s co-host, former NBA player Kenny Smith, agreed, noting that Williamson was many weeks away from being at a weight at which he could be competitive in the NBA. Smith said, “That’s not the guy we see flying through the air with the greatest of ease.”

Gravity, man.

Last year, six former runners at the University of Oregon alleged emotional abuse by the track and field coaching staff that resulted in some of them developing eating disorders.

Oregon head track coach Robert Johnson defended his program’s use of blood tests, hydration tests and DEXA scans (medical imaging tests that use X-rays to precisely measure bone density and body fat percentage) by saying, “Track is nothing but numbers. A good mathematician probably could be a good track coach.”

First of all, wow. If you’re looking to run (or have your son or daughter run) in a collegiate track and field and cross country program that has won 32 NCAA championships and is led by a coach with an EQ (emotional quotient) of near-zero, Oregon is the place for you. Oregon announced in June that it would not renew Johnson’s contract.

According to a report in The Oregonian, an athlete who graduated from Oregon last year wrote to the university’s athletic department in October 2020, “I have seen and experienced an absolutely disgusting amount of disordered eating on the women’s track team, all because the coaches believe body fat percentage is a key performance indicator. We are not professional athletes. We do not have access to a bounty of organic food. We do not have unlimited time to cook. We cannot plan our days around our nutrition, and we are not the 30-year-old Olympians that coach Johnson seeks to compare our body fat percentage to. While knowing body composition may be helpful for some athletes, I have seen it be nothing but destructive.” As that Oregon runner wrote, there is a difference between an 18-year-old university athlete, 15-year-old high school athlete and a 25- or 30-year-old professional.

During my time as a post-collegiate competitive runner, nutrition was an area in which I could have done much better and looking back, I think poor nutritional choices in the week before an important qualifying race cost me a chance to run in the Olympic Games. I was working full-time then and I did not have unlimited time to cook (or shop). I did what was easiest, and I didn’t know better.

Most people, of course, are not elite athletes. Most of us weigh up the pros and cons of eating a donut, or drinking a beer or glass of wine, and decide in favor of the donut and the glass of wine. I know I do, although I have recently dropped 3-4 kg of pandemic-related weight. I was the fattest I had been in my life, and I have never been fat. I have noticed it in my running. Yay.

At the same time, however, many of us who have competed and continue to compete (or aspire to continue competing once we can get our hamstring injuries under control) understand that extra weight costs athletes.

After all, work = force x distance. The heavier the object you are moving, the more force is required.

Like my skinny Danish friend, I laugh (to myself) when I hear cyclists (and triathletes are notorious for this) debating the relative merits of carbon fiber frames, or titanium pedals and bottle cages.

If you want a road bike that weighs less than 6.7 kg, allow me to recommend the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL7. And that’ll be $20,000, please.

Or for $17,000 less, and 2.24 kg more, you could buy a Cinelli Vigorelli bike made from steel. It won’t break, and if you care for it, you will be able to pass it along to the next generation.

If you buy the Specialized, you can eat (almost) all the donuts you want. If you buy the Cinelli, you have to be a bit more careful.

Going back to that conversation I had last summer, if you are an elite athlete, good nutrition is a critical part of your training, and while everyone needs fatty tissue, not least to store energy, every kilogramme you don’t need is hurting, not helping you. That’s physics. Just sayin’.

I’ve been a runner since my first year of secondary school, when my football (soccer) coach (also the athletics coach) made me promise to turn up in the springtime for track practice. I started out as a very ordinary 14-year-old mile runner, but kept growing and improving, and eventually had a good high school and university career as a track runner, then, like many people, moved up in distance and onto the roads in search of post-collegiate racing opportunities.

I had more athletic adventures (I ran in several World Championships and nearly an Olympic Games, representing Hong Kong, thanks to my status as a permanent resident in a time when Hong Kong had no “citizens”), and they all involved running shoes, until one day while I was traveling overseas I received an email from a friend, “I entered you in the Macau International Triathlon! I’ll arrange a bike for you. See you in two weeks!”

Of course I knew how to ride a bike, but I had never worn cycling shoes (my friend sourced a pair of those for me also, and they were almost the right size!), and never “raced” a bicycle, but what the hell, right? On the morning of the race, I met my friend at the Macau Ferry Terminal in Hong Kong and we crossed the Pearl River delta through high winds and chop that promised to make my debut triathlon memorable.

I’m not a cyclist and I’m not a swimmer, but I can swim. I learned, as many Americans of my generation did, in classes organized by the Red Cross, and although I hadn’t swum much (except fooling around on boat trips) since I was little, my aerobic engine was big enough that I could churn through the water at a decent pace.

So I stood on the beach on Coloane Island with another few hundred triathletes, on a windy and cloudy day, until the race director pulled the trigger on his air horn. The Macau International Triathlon was (and perhaps it no longer exists?) an Olympic distance race, meaning it consisted of a 1.5-kilometre swim, a 40-kilometre bike ride, and a 10-kilometre run.

I dashed into the sea and did my best, but the swim – especially in rough water – was always going to be my worst discipline (or so I thought at the time!) and I emerged in close to last place, or at least it seemed like that, looking at how few bikes remained in the transition area. I found my bike (easily!), put on my borrowed cycling shoes and helmet, clipped in (yay!) and headed out. As I remember it, the course circled Taipa Island, and included a dogleg out most of the way across the New (and that time it really was new) Macau-Taipa Bridge and back.

Because I had finished the swim in nearly last place, and wasn’t a powerful cyclist, I rode the 40-kilometer bike leg alone. Did I overtake a few people? Maybe, but just a few. And on the bridge, grinding into 50-knot headwinds as I returned to Taipa and the run leg, I was not thanking the friend who had signed me up for the race. My back was aching, I seemed to barely be moving forward, and I was still at the back of the field.

Eventually, I got to the run transition zone, dumped my bike and helmet, laced up my running shoes, and got into my comfort zone. At that point, I was Hong Kong’s best runner, so I banged out the 10K pretty quickly, and overtook a lot of people who had kicked my butt during the swim and bike legs. I will never forget that after I finished, a Frenchman I had overtaken in the final 100 meters came up to me, outraged, and said (please use your best French accent here), “But zat eez not correct! You had way too much left at ze finish!” My friend who had arranged our morning of fun was standing there (he was a terrible swimmer, but a good cyclist and a decent runner, and had finished ahead of me) and laughed.

Later, the race winner came up to ask me how I had enjoyed it, and I told him I had thought about quitting during the bike, way up on the bridge, battling 50-knot headwinds. He said, “Me too! But I was leading, so I thought I might as well carry on!”

That was my one and only foray into triathlon. I had enjoyed it (sort of), but I thought Hong Kong was simply far too dangerous a place to practice cycling (and I know a handful of people who have been badly injured by aggressive or careless motorists).

I did, however, enter a bunch of aquathlons, which involve swimming and running. As I have said, my swimming is not fabulous, but it’s not terrible, and although I was never able to stay with the top triathletes during the swim, I was almost always able to overtake them during the run. And so I won a bunch of aquathlons, which was a fun change from regular running races.

In Singapore, if you have a “friend” who signed you up for your first triathlon while you were out of town, you may have participated in one of MetaSport’s or Trifactor’s events. Both organizers offer a range of events and distances, including kids’ races, and the atmosphere is extremely welcoming to newbies. Don’t think your swimming is up to a competitive standard? Enter a run-bike-run! Don’t feel your bike skills are tour-ready? Test yourself in an aquathlon.

But I don’t recommend avoiding your weak points. It can be fun to venture out of your comfort zone.

If you’re a trail runner, you probably know what it’s like to get out of your comfort zone. There are thousands of trail races that take runners into wild terrain and ask them to dig deep inside themselves to get to the finish line.

Some of the legendary races are the Marathon des Sables, a multi-day, carry-what-you-eat stage race that has been held in North Africa’s Sahara Desert since 1986; the 400-kilometre Ultra Trail Gobi Race, in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert; and the Barkley Marathons, a wilderness ultramarathon inspired by the 1977 escape from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary of James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King Jr’s assassin. Caught by police after 55 hours, Ray was only 13km from the prison, prompting Barkley race founder Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell to think he could have covered 100 miles (162km) in the same time. Completing the Barkley requires completing five loops of an almost entirely untracked and unmarked course created by Cantrell, and is so difficult that during the 36 years since the race was founded, only 15 runners have finished.

But you don’t have to be an ultra-trailrunner in order to get out of your comfort zone and have some fun.

The same Gary Cantrell who dreamed up the Barkley Marathons invented the “backyard ultra”, a diabolically simple race concept that has gone global, and has seen some of the world’s top ultrarunners push themselves to almost unimaginable heights.

The backyard ultra concept is simple: Competitors must run a 6.7km lap of a pre-determined course in less than one hour. When each lap is completed, the time remaining within the hour is typically used to recover for the next hour's run. Exactly one hour after the start of the first lap, competitors must run another 6.7km lap, again within an hour. These loops are repeated hourly. The race ends when there is only one person remaining on course and they complete their final 6.7km loop and cross the finish line. Fun fact: the total distance run by a competitor who completes 24 loops (24 hours) is exactly 160.9km (100 miles). Another fun fact: the world record is 90 laps/hours (covering 603 kilometres!).

What is it like to run a backyard ultra? The (diabolical) inventor, Cantrell, compares running a backyard ultra to “lining up every hour and taking a punch in the face. Not a hard punch. A gentle punch. But every hour you line up and get punched again.”

Sound like fun? Singapore-based organizer Fatburd Events organized a backyard ultra last year, in East Coast Park, won by Abimanyu Shunmugam in 34 hours (227.8 kilometres). Hoong Wei was second (in backyard ultra parlance, “the assist”), completing 33 laps.

Best of all, Fatburd Events is organizing another backyard ultra, on Saturday, October 15, in Pasir Ris Park. The concept is simple, and of course you can complete one lap (hour). You can almost certainly complete six laps. But what about farther and longer? If you’re interested in getting out of your comfort zone … check it out at www.fatburdevents.com.

Fatburd Events is doing some other stuff that is designed to provide fun alternatives to those endless loops of MacRitchie or your regular Sunday long run in East Coast Park.

They recently organized the first in their “Nightcrawler” series of nighttime jungle trail races, at the Cycosports Jungle Cross Trail. There was a 5K and a 10K, and headlamps were definitely not optional!

If you’re a runner who has not raced much, or at all, it’s worth knowing that most races on earth are not elite-only, but instead, great fun for everyone, with age group categories (win prizes!), and plenty of competitors who don’t look like Olympians and don’t run like them either.

A couple more races that Fatburd Events has organized, or plans to organize: on 9 October, the company will stage its first “Wah, SUP!” race, comprising a SUP (stand-up paddleboard) leg and a running leg. Pre-pandemic, they organized a track race called “The Eliminator”, in which after every lap, the last-place runner is eliminated, creating a race within a race, as competitors work to conserve energy for the finish, yet avoid elimination along the way. There’s a lot of strategy, but basically it’s just a fun way to get in a hard training session.

Other sports you might consider trying for fun, or for their cross-training benefits, include longboarding/skateboarding via The Longboard Academy, which offers classes, and whose instructors include guys who have done some competitive super-long distance skating (yes, of course that’s a thing!); or orienteering (trail running, with navigation) via 65 Adventure. I tried orienteering a couple of years ago and it was a fantastic combination of fartlek running and map-reading.

Finally, Fatburd Events has for several years been organizing a Beer Mile (now a non-alcoholic beer mile). If you haven’t heard of a beer mile, you’ve been missing out. The concept is very simple: drink a beer, run 400 metres, drink another beer, run another 400 metres, drink a third beer, run a third 400 metres, then drink a fourth beer, and run the final 400 metres (plus another 9.3 metres gets you to a mile).

The world record for men is 4:21.8, and the world record for women is 6:16.5. Olympic medalists have tried for the record and come up short, which should tell you it’s not really about how fast you can run, but about how fast you can run after having chugged a beer every 400 metres!

In 2022, Fatburd Events’ Beer Miles have been conducted using non-alcoholic beer, but don’t get overconfident. With regular beer, you would have been finished by the time the alcohol hit your system; it’s the liquid and bubbles that make the event so tough. Oh, and did I mention that the rules call for a penalty lap if you throw up during the race? It really is about the beer drinking, not the running.

If you’re not a drinker, even of non-alcoholic beer, there is a Blue Jean Mile. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, elite U.S. track runner Johnny Gregorek undertook a fundraiser for a mental health non-profit, and ran a mile in track spikes, his racing vest, and a pair of blue jeans. The previous Blue Jean Mile “world record” was 4:11, but Gregorek (a 3:50 miler in running shorts) busted out a 4:06, which is seriously moving. The big question is whether or not Gregorek might be able to down four beers in 15 seconds and take the Beer Mile record in blue jeans!

If you sometimes feel that your training is stagnating and your motivation is flagging, get out of your comfort zone. You don’t need to join an official race. Gary Cantrell dreamed up the Barkley Marathons and the backyard ultra. The Ironman triathlon – and many other great events ­– got its start when a few athletic friends said, “Hey, do you think it’s possible to …”

Most of the time, it is possible, and it’s fun!

In 2017, U.S. ultrarunner Camille Herron shattered the 100-mile world record by over an hour, completing the distance in 12 hours 42 minutes 40 seconds. Last month, at the U.S. 100 Mile Road Championships, she broke her own world record, finishing in 12:41:11, a time that placed her first overall, ahead of the top male runner by almost 30 minutes.

When she started competing in ultramarathons (any distance longer than the 42.195 kilometers of a marathon) in 2015, Herron was already a pedigreed marathon runner. She had qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials three times, and had been a high school cross country and track star. She had run a marathon in 2:48 dressed as Spiderwoman.

But it is at the longer distances that Herron found her groove. She has set world records on the roads and on the track at distances from 50 miles to 24 hours, and she is a three-time winner of the IAU 24 Hour World Championship.

What does it take to run 100 miles? Or 24 hours?

Well, mostly it takes determination, and a good nutrition strategy. Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run, described ultrarunning as: “An eating and drinking contest, with a little exercise and scenery thrown in.”

What does it take to run 100 miles or 24 hours fast? It takes determination, a good nutrition strategy, and speed work.

The same is true for the marathon, half marathon and the 10K.

If you want to run fast, you have to train fast.

After her recent 100-miles world record, Herron told The New York Times, “I don’t do very many long runs, maybe 18 to 22 miles is my long run. I only do a long run every couple of weeks. In the eight weeks before a peak race, I do 900 to 1,050 miles, so that’s about 120 miles (less than 200 kilometers) a week.”

Herron added, “There are a lot of ultrarunners who train with extreme long runs, and I’ve never done that. I think maybe some ultrarunners should rethink their approach and take a more speed-specific, marathon-specific approach that might bring them more success.” She continued, “I do a lot of speed work. I do short intervals, long intervals, tempo runs of 30 to 45 minutes. And I also do hill training to develop strength in my legs and my body.”

Her bottom line: “It’s not like I can do a 100-mile run in training for a 100-mile race.”

Every runner who races, or just wants to record a new personal best time for his or her “home course”, can benefit from speed work. Without it, at some point you’ll stop getting faster.

Why? Because if you go out to East Coast Park every day and run eight kilometers in 40 minutes, after a few years of doing the same workout you will be very, very good at running eight kilometers in East Coast Park in 40 minutes. Will you be able to ask your muscles to do eight kilometers in 36 minutes? Not likely.

How can you train yourself, then, to run 36 minutes when you want to? For example, when you sign yourself up for a Sunday road race? It’s simple: you’ve got to train your muscles to run faster.

Interval training is a training method that combines short, faster-than- normal runs with a regulated rest period, the “interval”. The point of interval training is to condition the body to the pace at which it will be racing.

Interval workouts can improve performance dramatically because they get the legs accustomed to running faster than usual, which has the effect of making the previous pace feel slow. In a racing situation, your legs are more easily able to perform at a faster pace because they've done it many times in practice. The action is ingrained in your muscle memory, much as repeated practice of tennis forehands results in consistent shot-making.

The key is to limit the amount of rest between sprints. Although the body is not completing the full race distance during each sprint, with short rest the athlete can string together a number of sprints that may add up to more than the eventual distance to be run.

This is a technique that need not be done only on a track, nor is it a training method for world class athletes alone. Runners can pace off approximate distances on their favourite stretch of road or path and devote one training session per week to “track work”. If a track is available it will probably be uncrowded and will provide accurate distances and a change of scenery.

Interval training is a technique that also can be used by indoor athletes: treadmill joggers, exercise bicyclists, and indoor rowers. Many exercise machines are computerised and provide accurate information about distance traveled.

The next question is: "How much rest?" Trial and error is not a bad method for determining this, since individual fitness levels are extremely variable. Athletes who race will find it helpful to set performance goals.

Complete recovery (i.e. ten minutes between 400-metre dashes) is too much. If ten minutes does not seem adequate, the pace of the sprint is too fast. Conversely, unless you are already in top shape, a rest period of ten or fifteen seconds between runs is too little. As an example, race pace for a 45:00 10km runner works out to 4:30 per km. This runner might hope to run 43:00 and slash 12 seconds per km from his or her pace, to 4:18.

Interval training for our hypothetical runner might select 4:10 pace as the training target, and the maximum training distance at first might be one km. As fitness increases, 3km in 12:30 is feasible.

As an example, you might decide to do six 800-metre (two laps on most tracks) runs in 3:25, with a rest of two minutes between each. Alternatively, you could do two or three 1600m runs in 6:50 with a rest of four minutes. Both of these workout possibilities would take around 30 minutes to complete, plus time for warm-up and warm-down.

There are plenty of training guides online to fit everyone’s fitness level and pace targets, and if you are in a running club or training group, some of your more experienced colleagues will be able to suggest training sessions.

Do marathon runners need to do speed work? Absolutely! My best time for the marathon is 2 hours 23 minutes. That works out to just under 3 minutes 25 seconds for each kilometre, for 42.2 kilometres. It means I ran four 10- kilometre sections of the race in 34 minutes. With no rest.

So what? My point is that when I ran that 2:23, I was able to run under 30 minutes for a single 10K. As a result, I was able to run 34 minutes easily for the first 10K of my marathon, and feel relaxed doing it. A good thing, too, since I had 32K to go at that stage.

For most people, the daily run, or swim, can get to be a grind. Up at six, lace up the shoes, and out the door for a sleepy-eyed plod around the same circuit, day in and day out. Not only will the addition of a once-or-twice- weekly interval session add variety to your workouts, it will in all probability improve your race performance.

Researchers estimate that every year over half of runners are injured badly enough that they have to take a break from running. Is there anything we can do to prevent injuries? And if we do get injured, what can we do to get back into our running shoes as quickly as possible? Taiwanese-Texan Jenny Huang is well-known on Singapore’s road racing scene, but she casts a much longer shadow out in the world of athletes from every sport (even desk jockeys!) who from time to time find that their bodies are not working quite right. Jenny is the founder and owner of HelloPhysio, which provides a wide range of physiotherapy and related services. We hate injuries, and we know you do too, so we thought we would talk to Jenny about what to do when you get injured, and more importantly, how to prevent injuries.

RUN Singapore: I want to talk about injuries. Researchers estimate that every year over half of runners are injured badly enough that they have to take a break from running. What can/should runners do to prevent injuries?

JENNY: The best thing you can to avoid injury is keep your muscles pliable and strong. Pliable means supple, not tight, and massage and foam rolling are the best way to do this. You should run a minimum of three times a week so your muscles continue to adapt to the demands of running, and get stronger. Ideally, though it’s not so easy in Singapore, you should run on varied terrain such as hills and trails. This will help your muscles to develop more completely. Along the same lines, you should train at varying speeds. Your muscles and tendons need to be continuously challenged, and if you run at the same pace all the time you risk developing chronic over-use injuries.

RUN Singapore: What are the most common injuries you see in runners? 

You can imagine, because you’ve probably had most of them. Knee problems we see include ITB (iliotibial band) syndrome and patello-femoral/patellar tracking issues (runner’s knee). Foot problems are mainly plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendinosis. And in between we see shin splints, which are also known as medial tibial stress syndrome. None of it is fun and all of it is treatable.

RUN Singapore: We frequently hear new runners say someone has told them they need to "fix" their running form. We're old enough to have seen some very good runners achieve success with less-than-perfect running form. What's your view? Does anyone need to "fix" their running form? If so, what sort of issues would make you recommend trying to do that, and how should runners investigate?

There's evidence that it’s possible to learn to run with less load, or “more efficiently”. But should all runners emulate the Kenyans? NO. Very few of us were born running on dirt roads or trails, covering half marathons on the way to and from school. What we can do is use information such as cadence and stride length, combined with zone training and strength work to achieve better, more efficient running form.

RUN Singapore: Back when we were young and fast, we did a lot of icing, mostly for tendinitis. But recently we read that icing had fallen out of favor. Then we read it was back in favor. What's your position on ice, ice, baby? 

For the first 24 hours after you experience an issue, apply ice to reduce inflammation. After that, apply heat to stimulate circulation and promote faster healing. The science is pretty clear on this.

RUN Singapore: I want to ask the same question about stretching. For years those of us who didn't much like stretching were under fire for not spending that 10-15 minutes before every run trying to push over buildings or telephone poles, and that 20 minutes afterwards sweating all over the living room rug. But now we read there's no evidence stretching is worthwhile. What do you think? 

I am historically a lazy stretcher, and I am happy the research shows that static stretching does nothing to prevent injury and is nearly useless in rehabilitation as well. Getting a full range of motion in your running stride is a different matter, though. Dynamic stretching will definitely help you there, and runners whose muscles have a greater range of motion are almost always faster. One last note on static stretching: research has shown that static stretching prior to a race results in reduced performance among elite runners. So there!

RUN Singapore: Do you recommend sports massage? If so, obviously most of us can't afford (including the time) to get a massage after every run, so when should we make time for that? 

I highly recommend a sports massage that doesn’t hurt. A good sports massage should not have you biting the towel and clenching your butt cheeks. As an injury preventative, I recommend every runner have a good sports massage at least every 4-6 weeks. This will help keep your muscles pliable, and in between of course you’re using the foam roller, right?

RUN Singapore: At the beginning we talked about injury prevention. Obviously, runners are pretty terrible at that, which is why you have a thriving business. What can physiotherapists do for runners, and what percentage of your business is sports-related and what percentage is just normal aches and pains (i.e. do you get a lot of athletes saying, "Hey, maybe you can help my granny with her trick knee)?

As a physiotherapist who loves running, I understand that runners gonna run. But if you have a niggle, or something worse than that, if it lasts more than two weeks, you need to get a diagnosis and professional advice on how to fix the problem.

What we do at HelloPhysio is:

1. Figure out the pathology (root cause) 

2. Use hands-on techniques to assist and jumpstart healing

3. Prescribe appropriate training loads (for runners, rest truly is the last resort) 

4. Prescribe at-home exercises to speed the healing process 

5. Look at our clients’ outdoor (not treadmill) running form to see if we can spot any issues or imbalances

Many thanks to Jenny for talking to us, and you check out HelloPhysio’s website here. HelloPhysio’s Instagram is here.

Back when I was young and fast, I built my training program around my racing goals, and I ran an unhealthy proportion of my workouts much too quickly. These days my best hope in a race is an age group win, and I run for fitness and fun much more than trophies (and free shoes … which I do miss!).

I also spend much less time looking at my watch and thinking about my splits. In fact, often I stop dozens of times during a run, to pick up a PET bottle or a candy bar wrapper or – sign of the times – a paper face mask. I will – I hope – never be "a jogger" (no matter how slow and decrepit I get, I'll always be a runner!), but I have become "a plogger".

If you follow the global running scene, you have probably heard of plogging. While runners have always stopped on occasion to pick up bits of rubbish from along their running routes, in 2016 a Swede named Erik Ahlström "invented" plogging (plogga, in Swedish), which he named by combining the Swedish verbs plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog).

Ahlström set up a website to publicise the new "sport" and to provide a virtual meeting point for people who were interested in participating. Since then, millions of people have engaged in plogging, whether on their own or with friends or colleagues.

Although I have always tried to pick up rubbish while running on trails, I got my start as an active blogger when I lived in Japan, in a small beach town around an hour south of Tokyo. Japanese have a well-deserved reputation for cleanliness, but I can assure you, there was always plenty of rubbish washed up on the beach in front of my house, and at least once a week I collected one or more 45-litre bags of rubbish and plastic and broken glass.

My findings included thousands of PET bottles (a few from far-off lands including Vietnam, China and South Korea, but 99 percent Japanese), hundreds of empty fishing line packages, dozens of golf balls, a tennis racquet (stringless) a giant sea turtle (dead), a big skate (dead), a small shark (dead), a medium-sized octopus (dead), a boom box (non-functioning), and an artificial vagina (used). Recently on a trail in California, I picked up a discarded bag of dog poop, and unfortunately had to carry it to the top of the mountain and back down before I found a bin.

If you run regularly in East Coast Park you will remember that last year the government's rubbish collection services were suspended or reduced for significant periods. During this time, the beaches quickly filled up with plastic and other waste, washed in from the sea, and it was easy for me to fill up a large bag or two and feel as though I had not made much of an impact. [In 2015, environmental non-profit Ocean Conservancy reported that 55 to 60 percent of plastic waste in the oceans comes from just five countries – China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.]

And yes, some may think rubbish collection "is not my job". The government contracts with rubbish collection services to keep our beaches and parks clean, but in some areas, the rubbish accumulates faster than the collectors can remove it. I could run past, thinking, "Someone who is getting paid will pick this up in a day or two," or I could stop, bend over, and pick up that PET bottle or candy wrapper or face mask and carry it to the nearest bin.

So I do that, and I think about the additional workout my core is getting as I bend and twist to pick up each candy bar wrapper. I glance admiringly at my biceps, which I’m sure are benefiting from carrying PET bottles to the nearest recycling bin.

I have no idea whether or not it’s true, but in an interview Erik Ahlström claimed that plogging burns 10 percent more calories than regular running. I put it in Strava as a “manual activity”.

Lots of people enjoy plogging as an organised group activity, but I just do it on my own. I stuff a bag down the back of my shorts, plus a glove (like Michael Jackson, I wear only one), and if I come across something icky, I slip on the glove, whip out the bag, bend and twist my core to grab the offending item, and pump my biceps until either I reach a rubbish bin or get back home.

If you like, you can also snap a selfie with your rubbish and post to Instagram with the hashtag #plogging!

The Shimanto river is in southern Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's major islands, and because it lies far from any major city and remains undammed, Japanese say it’s one of the last, or the last, “clear” stream in the country. It’s also known as the site of one of Japan’s best-known road ultramarathons.

Some years ago, when I was living in Hong Kong, I decided to try my hand at the 100K distance, and I chose the River Shimanto Ultramarathon for my debut. I had run five or six sub-2:30 marathons, and completed a couple of Oxfam Trailwalker 100K team events, but I wanted to run a solo 100K on roads, and I hoped to break eight hours.

The River Shimanto Ultramarathon starts and finishes in the town of Nakamura, which is a seven-hour drive from Osaka's Kansai Airport, and a seven-hour drive back. Not readily accessible for foreigners, nor for Japanese, yet race organisers limit entries each year to 1,800 for the 100K and 600 for the accompanying 60K. The time limits are 14 hours for the 100K and 10 hours for the 60K.

Getting to the race start

The drive from the Osaka (Kansai) Airport to Shikoku was fabulous, and my training partner, Clive, and I broke it into two parts. On Friday afternoon we drove three hours to Awaji Island, arriving after dark to our small ryokan (inn) where we bathed (ah, Japan!) and sat down for a meal of seafood, seafood and more seafood. Oh yes, and beer. How fresh was the seafood, within 50 metres of the sea on this small Japanese island? This fresh: despite having been sliced into several dozen ready-to-eat pieces of sashimi, our artfully arranged red snapper was still gasping for air. No kidding.

The next morning, we awoke to weather as clear as a bell, went for a short pre-breakfast run, breakfasted and jumped into the car for another four hours driving. Arrived in Nakamura, we checked in at race headquarters before heading to our hotel for more seafood and beer. And in a nod to the next day's events, a bowl of rice.

Race day

Up at 4:15 to tape, lube and jam a couple of Mr Donut's finest down our throats, we made it to the race start before 5:00, more than half an hour before the pre-dawn race start. Clive managed to use most of this time in a hunt for a toilet that didn't have a queue of 400 runners in front of it, returning minutes before the gun. He reported that the most time-consuming aspect of his quest was the removal and relacing of his Nike Prestos (remember, this is Japan) that bracketed his moments of solitude and contemplation in the sanitary facilities of a nearby school gymnasium.

Good feeling at the start, with none of the pushing and shoving found at so many race starts elsewhere. We got into conversation with another runner, a Japanese man nervous about impending debut over 100K, and wished one another luck before counting down to the gun, "San, ni, ichi!!!"

Don’t go out too fast!

In the dark Clive and I quickly separated according to our separate race plans – I was hoping to run 8 hours, and Clive hoped for 9:30. In the hour before dawn the road – a single-track through a forest and along a fast-moving river – was lit by volunteers' vehicle headlamps and generator-driven lamps; there were volunteers to cheer us on every 500 metres or so.

The Shimanto ultra is in part made a fantastic racing experience by 1,500 volunteers, who on our race day spent hours standing in unwarm rain, shouting "Gambatte kudasai!" to every runner as he or she passed. I perfected my ability to say "thank you" and "gambare-masu!" ["I'm trying my best!"] in Japanese. Comparing notes afterwards with Clive, we found that both of us had thanked or responded to every person (in addition to the volunteers, thousands of villagers and farmers turned out in the rain to cheer us on) along the route.

There's only one hill

Early in the race the rain hadn't started, and the first major obstacle we would face was a 650-metre hill that had occupied a not inconsiderable portion of my thoughts during my frankly inconsiderable amount of training. Work pressures had meant that for the preceding six months I had pretty much been running only twice a week, trying to cram in 20-30K on each of the weekend days, then doing nothing during the work week. Despite that foolhardy preparation, I had felt myself rounding into decent condition, and was reasonably confident of doing okay.

The hill was indeed 650 metres, but at a gradient I found relatively easy going after 12 years on Hong Kong's roads and trails. At the top the mist began to fall, and bombing down the other side I locked in with a Japanese runner I would see again many times during the race. The two of us ran downhill for nearly half an hour, it seemed, and shared a funny moment when passing a trailhead, both of us turned to gaze longingly down a pine needle-strewn path. Cheer up, boys, only seventy kilometres of macadam to go.

Taking it easy

I ran easily through the marathon in 3:27, in the top 30 overall I would guess, and I felt good about my chances. Through 50K not long after, the halfway point, and I recorded 4:06 on my watch, just where I wanted to be time-wise if I were to bag my 8:00. At this point however, I backed off just a touch, mindful that I had probably been running faster than 8:00 pace for at least half of the first 50K as I climbed the big hill.

At 56K the race's second hill loomed, much shorter and sharper than The Big One, and I loafed up it, switching to a walk on one especially steep bit when walking seemed just as fast as "running". Over the top, I could see the main part of the Shimanto River, and across it, a major road. At the bottom, I got a (verbal) boost as well from a cute female volunteer, but had no time to pause for a chat.

At 62K runners could pick up a drop bag they arranged to be transported to that point, containing dry socks, a fresh top, more Vaseline, whatever. Clive and I had elected not to do that, and as I ran into the checkpoint I was greeted by the shouts of dozens of volunteers, encouraging me on my way. I looked left, saw the bag retrieval area and knew I didn't need anything from there. I looked right, saw the massage tent, and didn't need anything from there either.

Where it all went badly wrong

Where I didn't look at was the food table, nestling quietly at the end of the bag pickup zone. Ran right past it. didn't see it. Assumed, maybe, that food would be just around the corner. Oops.

Running 100K, in eight hours or eighteen, you've got to eat whenever and wherever you can. I had been eating throughout the race after the first 25K, slurping Amino Vital (Japanese carb drink) at alternate water stops and occasionally munching pound cake and small cups of tangerine slices in syrup. [This was before energy gels were ubiquitous and every ultrarunner was a self-educated expert in endurance nutrition.] I was managing my food well, I thought, and I felt good.

Missing the food at 62K was a problem, but I figured there would be food at 65K, so I wasn't too worried. When I got to 65K, however, there was a problem. There was no food there, and not even any Amino Vital. I tossed down a cup of water and jogged out of the station, but a few hundred metres down the road I stopped to consider. I knew I needed food, and I guessed I wouldn't see any for at least another five kilometres. Should I go back to 62K? I thought about it, but I was in the top 15 at that point, and I didn’t want to give up however many places it would cost me to run an extra 6K. I decided to try to tough it out.

The bonk

Bad move. At 67K I "bonked". My body completely ran out of fuel, every cell drained of strength. I stopped, I sat on a guard-rail (the course at this point was along a single-track through the forest, with a guard rail separating the road from the river), I walked for 50 metres, jogged – if you could call it that – for 20. I sat down again. I carried on in this way for quite a long way. Some people passed me, but since I was pretty far up in the field I didn't see so many people. Every 500 metres or so I met a volunteer, and I measured my progress in terms of volunteers passed and kilometre markers left behind. I tried to respond to the encouragement given to me by each volunteer, but most of the time I couldn't speak.

Much later, shuffling down a wider stretch of road, Clive passed me, with an uncharitable, "Get [expletive deleted] running." "[Expletive deleted] you," I thought, but followed the instructions of a man who has completed dozens of ultras, and got [expletive deleted] running. If you could call it that. Clive was gone from view in a minute or so, and eventually I came to a water station at 70K, where I had hoped to find food. There was no food and when I asked the man in charge of the station how soon I could expect to find food he said at 72K. Two K to go.

Eventually I made it, rain coming down hard now, and feeling very sorry for myself. There are not a lot of transport options along the Shimanto course, though, and so as I flopped down onto a bench under the volunteers' rain tarp, I tried to figure out how I was going to make it over the last 28K. Refuelling, I stuffed seven pieces of pound cake into my mouth and downed seven cups of tangerine slices in syrup, washed it all down with a cup of Amino Vital, and felt like a new man.

Get that finisher's medal

Just kidding. I still felt awful, but I got up anyway hoping the food would kick in after 10 minutes or so. Having completely run out of gas I knew that it would take days to get my cells topped up again, but I was hoping I had ingested enough fuel to get me to the finish. This proved to be the case. I began running – if you could call it that – at what was probably 5:45 per kilometre, reading the number on each distance post as I passed, and subtracting from 100 to get my magic number.

With 15K to go I told myself I would be finished in an hour and a half, and at roughly that point I saw that I had been running for roughly eight hours. My target time. And "only" 15K to go.

As I ran, I hoped against faint hope that I would see Clive's back loom out of the rain, and that I would be able to run in with him to the finish, but no chance of that. He was long gone. I clicked past 90K, and as a long-time track runner I began counting down the laps in my mind as I closed in on the finish. I passed 95K and I was passing a few runners I had seen hours earlier; now they were in the middle of their own bonks, walking or jog/walking to the finish as best they could.

Made it

Close to the finish area I was cheered by dozens of townspeople, sheltering from the rain in shop fronts, and now I was running again, really running, to get across the line and get it over with. As I entered the finishing straight the rain was hammering down and I crossed the line in 9:44:47, good for 50^th overall out of only around 850 finishers.

Clive had finished superbly in 9:28:18, in 29^th place, and just under his target time of 9:30. He had run a personal best time for 100K and also, astonishingly, for 50 kilometres. He said he had run in fear over the final 20K, hoping I wouldn't pull alongside, and then pull away. No worries about that.

I had finished almost two hours slower than I'd hoped, nearly every minute of which I could account for between the 67 and 72 kilometre marks. I finished disappointed, but determined to try my hand at another ultra. And I finished damned glad that I had finished.

I had made a novice mistake, observed the veteran Clive. The lesson I'd learned? Look for food at every stop. Look hard.

Last September, Apple introduced its Watch Series 6 with the slogan “The future of health is on your wrist.”

But although the Apple Watch is certainly attractive, it's not the GPS watch for most serious athletes, because it doesn't have the battery life. Apple claims the Watch Series 6 can deliver seven hours of battery life in GPS mode, but unless you're Jim Walmsley, that's not going to be enough to get you to the finish line of a 100km ultramarathon.

The big names in the GPS-for-endurance-sport game are Polar, Suunto, Garmin and Coros, all of which produce a high-quality watch. In fact, I have owned watches from all those companies, albeit over a 25-year period, starting with Polar, and moving to Suunto, then Garmin, and finally Coros.

The watches themselves provide pretty much the same functionality, depending on how much you're willing to pay. What's interesting and useful to athletes is the data the watches can collect and present to you either on your wrist, in an off-watch app, or exported to a third-party app such as Strava, RunKeeper, MapMyRun or one of the shoe company apps such as Nike+ Run Club or adidas Runtastic.

What data do these watches deliver? Well, as soon as you press "stop" to finish your workout you can know your time, pace, distance, heart rate, and elevation gain.

Once you've exported your data to an app, there is so much more data you can attain. You can review your pace in kilometer (or mile) increments, which can show you if you perhaps started too quickly and paid a price toward the end. You can see your stride cadence, which also can show you if you may have started too quickly, but in addition can show if you may need to improve your leg strength e.g. most runners slow down at the end of a marathon not because they're winded, but because their muscles are not working as efficiently as at the start. Other data features include power and intensity measurements on estimates and an assessment of how much rest you (may) need before your next workout.

Everyone's physiology is different, of course, and the real value of fitness data comes after you've recorded enough of it within your chosen fitness application to establish benchmarks that are relevant to you.

The fitness apps and watches know this, and they're happy to help you "gamify" your training. Strava famously lets users demarcate "segments" e.g. Rifle Range Road, MacRitchie Reservoir Loop, Bedok Reservoir, etc, which allows you to measure your progress against yourself and your friends and even enemies! This can also potentially turn every workout into a competition even if is only against yourself but be careful not to overdo it to avoid training overload or possible injury.

The final piece of the running data puzzle brings us back to Apple and its health and wellness focus. Many running watches and apps monitor your heart rate, and the Apple Watch has sensors that can detect atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can be deadly if not properly managed. Many watches now incorporate pulse oximeters that can monitor your blood oxygen levels. As with power and intensity measurements, the accuracy of this wrist-collected data is pretty good. 

If you're not currently a GPS watch user you may be wondering about the accuracy of GPS tracking. There is a lot of comparative data on the Internet, but the big four GPS watch makers – Polar, Suunto, Garmin and Coros, and let's throw Apple in there as well – do a fine job of showing you where you ran and how fast. Some manufacturers go farther – the Coros Apex includes a pretty cool "Track Mode" that significantly increases the accuracy of recorded track workouts by ‘snapping’ to the track and even a specific lane.

One area in which not all watches are equal is battery life. The Apple Watch Series 6 can deliver seven hours of battery life in GPS mode. If you're running 10Ks, that's fine. If you're running marathons, and remember to charge your watch before the start, that's fine.

But if you're a member of the fast-growing ultramarathon community, battery life is probably the single most important feature you want to consider in buying a GPS watch. There are a number of factors that affect battery life (most manufacturers have a long-life mode that records fewer GPS data points), and with most manufacturers, the more you pay, the more battery life you get.

Garmin's top-of-the-line Fenix 6 claims up to 25 hours in full GPS mode. Garmin's Forerunner 945, more of a pure running watch, claims up to 36 hours.

The mid-range 46mm Coros Apex claims up to 35 hours in GPS mode, and the top-of-the-line Coros Vertix claims an eye-popping 60 hours.

Both the Garmin and Coros watches offer much longer battery life if you go into long-life mode. The Coros Apex will last up to 100 hours, and needs to be recharged only around once a month.

Back in the day before GPS watches, heart rate monitors and power meters, there were stopwatches and surveyors’ wheels, used for measuring courses. After each workout runners could look at their times and ask themselves how we felt. Today it’s easy to immerse yourself in metrics (and obsess about them), but it’s important to keep the data in perspective, to ask yourself how you felt afterwards or during the training.

If you struggled through a workout that yielded indifferent performance data, it’s probably time to take a recovery day. Or two. And yes, your watch may suggest this to you as well, but remember, your watch doesn’t know how you actually feel. Not yet anyway.

How Does a Vegan Diet Affect Athletic Performance?

The rapid rise in popularity of ultrarunning over the past 10 years has been matched by an increase in the practice of veganism, and a number of prominent professional athletes are declared vegans or vegetarians. Some meat eaters profess skepticism that vegan athletes can consume enough protein to build the muscle required to pursue professional sport, but there are plenty of real-world examples proving them wrong.

Scott Jurek is the most famous vegan ultra-endurance athlete, with seven consecutive Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run wins to his credit, two Badwater Ultramarathon wins, a U.S. record (266.67 kilometres) for 24 hours on the roads, and a (since broken) supported FKT on the Appalachian Trail of 46 days, 8 hours, and 7 minutes in 2015.

At home, Jurek consumes traditional whole foods (e.g. beans, whole grains, tempeh, miso, and sprouted tofu), and he says he looks for products that have been sprouted, soaked, or fermented to help break down the indigestible cellulose in plant cell walls. On long training runs and in races he was famous for bringing homemade hummus sandwiches, but is also a proponent of (vegan, of course) energy gels and bars.

Catra Corbett is another vegan ultrarunner with an impressive c.v. She has completed over a hundred 100-mile races and is the oldest female finisher of the Triple Crown of 200s, a trio of iconic American 200-mile ultramarathons. Corbett also goes with vegan gels and bars in training and competition, as well as fruit and nut trail mix, avocados and nut butters. Both Corbett and Jurek wear vegan trail running shoes, offered by many manufacturers (e.g. Brooks for Jurek, Hoka for Corbett).

To learn how athletes can maintain (and increase) performance levels on a vegan diet, RUN Singapore spoke with Amit Mehta, founder of Unived, an Indian company that makes a wide range of natural, vegan health foods and supplements, including sports nutrition products (available at Red Dot Running Company) that are used by some of the world’s top ultrarunners, including Americans Hayden Hawks and Sandi Nypaver, Indonesian Ruth Theresia and Indian Kieren D’Souza.

RUN Singapore: Amit, I assume you are a vegetarian, and possibly vegan as well? Have you always been vegetarian (obviously something that is much more likely in India, which has so many vegetarians), or is that a change you made at some point, and if it is, what prompted it?

Amit Mehta: I was born in a vegetarian family, so I grew up vegetarian. I dabbled with fish and meat when I went off to college, but while my mind wanted to eat it (for protein!), my body seemed to reject it; I suffered from indigestion, felt sluggish, got acne, and just felt in an overall unhealthy state. I started reading up on food and nutrition, the role it plays in athletic performance, and before too long, I switched back to being vegetarian and soon enough turned vegan.

I turned vegan for health reasons and I have remained vegan for health and ethical reasons. It’s important to note that ‘plant-based’ and vegan are quite different. Plant-based individuals may eat a vegan diet, but do not live a vegan lifestyle. Being vegan is all-encompassing and entails a life of compassion and non-violence that outgrows just diet to involve all aspects and choices of life. It has had a profound effect on my mental and physical health, and most importantly on my near-immediate recovery from hard workouts. It also keeps me lean, and full of energy.

RUN Singapore: As the founder of a company that produces vegan nutrition products in part aimed at athletes, what are the benefits, would you say, of a vegan diet for athletes? Do athletes give anything up (besides meat and dairy products, obviously) when they embrace a vegan diet? And do you think (and is there science to support the belief) that veganism provides additional benefits?

Amit: The most common benefit that athletes experience is a near-instant recovery from workouts. All across the board, athletes who transition to a vegan diet report that their recovery time seems to have ‘magically’ reduced. The recovery is more ‘complete’, and they feel energetic and active throughout the day.

The only thing to give up is meat and dairy, but more than ‘giving up’ we should focus on what one needs to embrace; there are plenty of junk vegans out there who do not necessarily eat right, and instead eat a lot of processed foods. As long as we are eating wholesome foods and a varied diet of plants, fruit, nuts, seeds, lentils, with a minimum of processed and fast foods, we should be okay. There is plenty of research and science to back the unquestionable benefits of a vegan diet for both athletes & non-athletes.

RUN Singapore: Unived sponsors quite a few elite athletes. What can you share from the world of elite vegan athletes about nutrition and training/racing as a vegan that might be helpful to non-elite athletes?

Amit: There are a lot of myths around being a vegan athlete; for some reason, people seem to think one cannot perform to their best on a vegan diet. The no truth to that sentiment, and conversely, we are seeing athletes performing, outperforming, and optimally performing on a vegan diet and with vegan supplements.

The elite vegan athlete focuses largely on unprocessed and wholesome food habits – fresh seasonal fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, lentils, as well as good complex carbohydrates. There is enough and more for the body to recover and perform, optimally.

The first change athletes experience when converting from a non-vegetarian to a vegan diet is the almost instant reduction in recovery time, less inflammation, and more energy throughout the day.

RUN Singapore: Over the past few years a number of athletes (Venus Williams, Kyrie Irving, Lewis Hamilton) have publicly announced they are vegan, and that has stimulated a lot of interest among the rest of us. A bunch more (Mike Wardian, Ellie Greenwood, Sage Canaday) are vegetarian. At the same time, I don't think there's a lot of advice on making the transition. How would you recommend that athletes who are interested in giving vegetarianism/veganism a try make the transition without sacrificing health or performance?

Amit: Transitioning towards a vegan diet is actually very easy and simple. It takes 21 days to reset our palate, so we always recommend undertaking a 21-day challenge. No meat or dairy for 21 days straight, only wholesome plant-based foods. You are guaranteed to notice changes within these 21 days – changes in emotional and physical health. Most likely, on day 22, you’re left with a clear distinction between your older self and your new self, and you can make an informed decision about which direction you’d like to continue in.

RUN Singapore: Ultra-endurance sport specifically requires very high calorie intake during training and races. How can vegetarian/vegan athletes ensure that they get, for example, 5,000 calories in a day if they're training or racing hard?

Amit: This is easy and fun. You just need to get used to chewing a lot – because you’re going to be eating a lot, and pretty much throughout the day. There are plenty of apps and online resources that can help you count calories – all you have to do is take a picture of your food and they’ll give you an approximation.

RUN Singapore: I’ve heard Scott Jurek and others say they consume vitamins and nutrition supplements to complement his real food diet. Is the consumption of nutritional supplements necessary for vegan athletes?

Amit: Nutrition for athletes is not limited to just performance fuel. We train for only an hour or two every day. The rest of the time is spent eating, drinking and working. Vitamins and minerals, supplements, superfoods, proteins, these are all crucial to our overall health and wellbeing. Most high-performance athletes – whether vegan or not – require additional nutrition support, in the form of D3 and B12 (which are the most common), and also in the form of minerals such as magnesium, calcium and zinc. We also produce several products, including natural marine magnesium, that help improve quality of sleep and recovery. Because of the importance of sleep to recovery, these are popular with athletes as well.

Many thanks to Amit for talking to us, and you can learn more about his story and Unived at www.unived.in/. Many of Unived’s sports nutrition and supplement products are available at Red Dot Running Company, and can be found at www.rdrc.sg/collections/unived.

Like a lot of runners, I’ve had my share of injuries, and like a lot of runners who have had injuries, I’ve looked high and low for solutions to my various problems (which have become more frequent and more widespread throughout my body as I’ve aged …). If you’re doubting my credentials as an Old Guy Who Has Been Injured a Lot, let me just say that I had a pair of Nike Waffle Racers before they became vintage footwear that can fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay.

A few years ago, I had a pain in my left heel, and after struggling with it for months, I finally went to see my physiotherapist (I know, I know, what was I waiting for?), who diagnosed Haglund’s Syndrome, a bony protrusion on the back of the heel that can cause irritation and inflammation of the bursa, a small fluid-filled sac that provides a cushion and reduces friction.

Long story short, I had surgery to shave down the bone and after a longer-than-I-expected convalescence, during which I did much less rehabilitation than I should have, I returned to running (and eventually, incurred other injuries, but that’s another story).

Before I had my Haglund’s diagnosed, however, I tried to run through the pain, and – of course – I tried to change my shoes, in the hope that would fix the problem. I’ve run in a lot of different running shoes over the (many) years, including 10 years as a sponsored adidas athlete, but when my heel started to bother me I had been running in Asics. Which were fine.

But I thought, maybe it’s the shoes. [Spoiler alert: it wasn’t the shoes.] So, on a friend’s recommendation I switched to Hoka. On the face of it, this made a lot of sense. More cushioning, and a reasonable heel-to-toe drop that would presumably reduce the pressure on my Achilles tendon. Didn’t work, though, and I went through with the surgery.

Then after I recovered, I came across Xero Shoes, a “barefoot”, or minimalist running shoe brand. I had missed the whole “Born to Run” boom, but I listened to the rationale behind minimalist running, and it made sense to me.

The theory behind minimalist running is that by encasing our feet in relatively rigid work and running shoes for years, the muscles in our feet become weaker and the joints in our feet become less flexible. If you’ve ever had your arm or leg in a cast, you know how quickly your muscles atrophy if you’re not using them. The extension of the theory is that if you work to regain strength and flexibility in your feet and lower legs, you will improve your balance and speed and decrease your chances of injury and recover more quickly if you do get injured.

I thought to myself, “Hmmm, maybe there’s something to that”, but I certainly wasn’t ready to dive into the deep end of the pool and throw away my “regular” running shoes, so I bought a pair of Xeros with the idea that I would run in them once or twice a week on my shorter runs. And of course I had listened to the professionals and I was planning to transition to minimalist running gradually, rather than running 20K on the first day and injuring my Achilles or straining a calf muscle.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get right back into running after buying my Xeros because I picked up another injury (I can’t even remember what it was). So I started walking around town in them. I figured that if running in “barefoot” shoes would strengthen the muscles in my feet and lower legs, so would walking.

And something interesting happened.

Most days I walked at least 10 kilometres, and pretty much every day I came home with very tired feet and lower legs. I could feel my feet behaving differently inside my shoes, which had a much more spacious toebox than I was used to (in my work shoes and Hokas, and before them my Asics, and before them, my New Balance, and before them …), and I could feel the muscles in my lower legs responding differently to the 5.5mm stack height and zero drop construction. [Stack height is the thickness of the sole and midsole; zero drop refers to the difference between the heights of the heel and forefoot. My Hoka Rincon – which I absolutely love – have a stack height in the heel of 29mm, and in the forefoot, 24mm.]

As you may imagine, coming home every day with tired legs and feet was not what I had hoped for, and I was beginning to think the whole minimalist running thing was a hoax. 

But then, dear reader, to my great surprise, after around three weeks, everything changed. All of a sudden, my legs and feet felt great! I could walk and stand (for example, for 12 hours at the Red Dot Running Company booth at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon) all day, and come home with my feet and legs feeling great.

I can only assume that the three weeks of walking around had rebuilt the muscles in my feet and lower legs (“We can rebuild him!”) and once they were back on the team, I was good to go. It was fascinating.

And at that point, I had recovered from my injury (whatever it was) and was running again, but I did not feel I needed to adhere to my original plan of running once a week in my Xeros. I had already figured out (by accident) how to get the benefit I had been seeking. So, from then I just walked around in my minimalist shoes and continued to run in my Hokas.

Should you consider trying a pair of minimalist shoes? That’s up to you. I’ve always been interested in sport science, and physiology, and of course in trying to improve (though my days of setting personal bests are behind me, I’m afraid), so when the science of minimalist footwear was explained to me, it made sense, and I thought I would give it a try.

But everyone is different, and for sure there is no one proper way to run. Keep trying things until it all works for you, with your performances continuing to improve and your injuries infrequent. See you out there!

Racing means different things to different people. To marathon world record holders Eliud Kipchoge (2:01:39) and Brigid Kosgei (2:14:04), it means earning a (very good) living, and forging a place in athletics history. To those of us who run a bit more slowly, it can mean winning a local race, beating an age group rival, or simply doing the best that you can against the clock, the runners around you, and yourself.

If you do race, the first step to racing better is figuring out what you want to achieve. Do you want to run the fastest time you can? If so, your best strategy is to run as evenly as possible throughout the race, conserving energy so you can finish as strongly as you began and so you don’t “hit the wall” at the end. If your goal is to beat a particular rival, or to win your age group or indeed, the entire race, your strategy will be somewhat different. You will to some extent have to cover the moves of the other runners, so as not to let them get too far ahead.

What strategy you choose will depend also on what sort of runner you are. Do you have a fast finishing kick? Can you move up a gear in the final kilometre? Or are you a one-speed runner who needs to leave your opponents behind before the finish so they can’t kick past you? Former marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe had a good finishing kick, but not a great one. Many times during her career she settled for silver or bronze in a major championships over 5000 or 10000 metres.

Paula knew her kick was not great, and if you’ve watched her track races, you will have seen her run bravely and hard from the front in an effort to nullify the kicks of her rivals. Much of the time she didn’t managed to earn gold, but she ran as intelligently as she could have, playing to her main strength, a willingness to endure a whole lot of pain, and to put her opponents through the same. [She had a better record of winning after she moved to the marathon, in which there is more pain on offer!]

If you have a good kick, your best strategy most of the time will be to conserve as much energy as possible until you are within striking distance of the finish. If you have a main rival, stick to him or her like glue, running as relaxed as possible. Then once you’re within range of the finish, take off at the maximum pace you know you can maintain all the way to the line.

How far away from the finish you start your kick depends on a few factors; my athletics coach at university told me to wait until I could see the whites of the timers’ eyes before launching my kick. I was an 800- and 1500-metres runner, and this meant waiting until the final 50 metres of a race. Psychologically, it’s not easy to wait that long, and I lost a few races thanks to my impatience.

In my 30s I didn’t have the kick I’d had when I was at university, and against some opponents I had to try different tactics. Here’s what I did against one guy: I suspected he wasn’t mentally tough, and although I wasn’t certain I could outkick him in the final 100 metres, I thought I might be able to trick him by kicking in the middle of the race and fooling him into giving up. I tried this in a 1500 metres race on the track, and with exactly 500 metres to go – a long way to kick for home in a middle distance track race – I kicked as though there were only 100 metres remaining. My opponent was forced to decide whether or not I was going to be able to sustain my effort all the way to the finish (impossible for him, and actually, impossible for me!) and whether or not he should try to stay with me.

He decided to let me go, and I quickly built up a 30-metre lead. Then I slowed down again, and I had a 30-metre lead with only 400 metres to go. Great! Although my rival kicked for home with 200 metres to go, I had had time to recover some of my strength and I kicked again, holding him off easily and maintaining the gap.

Most of what I know about racing I learned by trial and error. In other words, I learned to win by studying my losses. You learn from experience if you can finish fast or not. If you have a good kick, use it. Wait, wait, wait, and then sprint for the line. If you don’t have a fearsome kick, you need to push, push, push throughout the race and hope you’ve left your rivals far behind when the finish line comes into view. If you’re somewhere in between, you have to keep your wits about you, observing who your rivals are, and assessing their abilities throughout the race. If you see a chance to build a gap, do it.

When American Billy Mills won the 1964 Olympic 10,000 metres, he recorded a personal best by 46 seconds. Mills felt that to succeed in racing, a runner has to be willing to take risks. Mills said, “The Kenyans risk. Steve Prefontaine risked. I risked – I went through the first half of the Tokyo race just a second off my best 5,000 time.”

Bill Rodgers, the great American marathon runner, who won the New York City and Boston Marathons four times each, has a similar philosophy: “My whole feeling in terms of racing is that you have to be very bold. You sometimes have to be aggressive and gamble.”

About the writer:

Roberto De Vido was once a reasonably competitive runner, but old age and injuries ended all that years ago. He now runs mainly in order to fit into his clothes.

I can’t count the number of times people have asked me, “How much should I be running?” There’s a different answer to that for everyone, depending on your own particular circumstances, but the main factor controlling how much you should run is how much you can run.

Do you have only an hour a day to devote to running? In that case, your limit will be seven hours a week, if you don’t take a rest day, and six hours a week if you do. How far can you run in one hour? That depends on how fast you are, but in an hour-long training run some people can easily cover 16 kilometres; some will cover less than half that.

Besides the time constraints imposed on our running by work and family and other commitments, our bodies impose another: injury. Some few people have never been injured; their bodies seem to be able to take literally in stride any abuse hurled at it. The rest of us are on intimate terms with our physiotherapists, massage therapists and doctors.

Time and injury aside, the question of how much you should run will be dictated by your running goals. Do you run to keep your shape or to keep your weight down? Do you run simply because you love the feeling of flying (or plodding) along trails or roads, momentarily free of the obligation to answer your mobile phone and e-mail? Do you run in order to race 10Ks or complete marathons and/or ultra-marathons? Staying slim (or relatively slim) and completing or racing marathons are very different goals, as are the training requirements.

If you run every day because you love it, and you never get injuries, then you can run as much as you like. Fifty kilometres a week, or 150 … do whatever makes you happy, as long as you don’t get injured. If you run to keep weight off, only trial and error will get you to the balance point between injury and an extra piece of pie. Motivation is a factor as well, since it’s impossible to see immediate results from a single run, or for that matter a single piece of pie.

Runners who race get regular feedback from their race results, and many racers get sucked deeper into the running world, trying to figure out how to run farther and faster given the constraints of schedules and injuries.

Ultimately, it’s quality, not quantity that counts. For some people, quantity works. Others must do less to avoid injury. How much is right for you? First of all, assuming that you enjoy running at all, try to run as much as you want to. Second, try to figure out how much running will help you achieve your running goals.

Finally, don’t worry about how much other people are doing; we’re all doing different things. You need to figure out – probably through trial and error – what will work for you. It’s very possible that what will work best for you is less running (and more cross-training or high-quality running sessions)!