Marathon on no training: the experiment

I just did the Paris Marathon 2022 on no run training. Plagued by injuries almost since I signed up, I could see the deadline approaching with no hope of improvement, so I decided to run it as an experiment. I’m a triathlon and health coach as a living and I consider every sport experience as an opportunity to learn about body and mind. This blog is meant to share what I learnt in the process. It probably wouldn’t work for everybody, but some clues might help others nonetheless.

My most recent marathon was Paris 2005, 17 years ago. OK, not entirely true, I also did 10 Ironman including 4 Kona, but anybody who has done both -a ‘plain’ marathon and an Ironman- know that the experience is different. In an Ironman, you start the marathon already very tired and push the body through exhaustion, the mental fight is extremely hard and can last for hours. In a marathon, you play with the limit in terms of pace and heart rate and if you go over it during just one kilometre, the amount of pain in the legs towards the end can be excruciating. That is, if you race competitively, which I have always done.

I signed up in for the Paris Marathon early November 2021 and I started my training well, leveraging on my local running/multisport club -the Wimbledon Windmilers- who offers tons of training sessions. I went on Christmas holiday to ski abroad and then, Derailment #1: both my children and my wife, one after the other, got Covid and we got stranded in the Alps for a full month until they tested negative again. In itself, in a sense, it was great, as I did more alpine skiing than ever, but no running for a month. When we finally got back to London, I got Covid too. That delayed my comeback even further. When I finally came back from it -I had very minor symptoms barring a surprisingly high heart rate while exercising- it didn’t take long before I tore my left calf: Derailment #2. I don’t know when this happened, it might be because I resumed too fast, too hard, or too much, or all at the same time. I stopped running again and healed. I resumed again and busted that same calf again, in spite of being much more prudent that time. Derailment #3.

It was early February and I realised that I would not have the marathon I was hoping for. Ramping up the volume takes time and I was running out of it. In fact, I couldn’t run at all anymore, and my calf was taking more time to heal than the time before. My wife and a close friend of mine also signed up for Paris Marathon and we had planned a family trip to France after the marathon, so I knew I would be in Paris on marathon day anyway. I decided to postpone my decision to race or not to race for the last days.

Suddenly my Sunday long rides and mid week hard run disappeared from my agenda, and instead of moaning like I sometimes do, I saw an opportunity: the local swim club South London Swimming Club organises informal ice swimming races on Sunday morning so this is how my amazing relationship with ice/cold swimming started. Soon ice swimming became my new passion, so much so that I almost forgot about the coming marathon. I was losing a sport I knew to discover a new one, and like everything that is new, it got me all excited. MINDSET!

Of the three sports in triathlon, running is the most taxing on the body. My sudden lack of running gave a respite to my body, and my cycling benefitted from it. I replaced some of my usual hard run by a bike ride. I normally ride indoor twice a week and outdoor once in the weekend. Each time I get to ride 4 times a week instead of 3, I improve significantly. This time was no exception, and I credit the combination of my increased ability to handle pain -gained through ice swimming- and my relative decrease in fatigue due to no running- to my recent hike in cycling threshold: I improved my Functional Threshold Power (FTP) by 15% compared to my most recent test and hit my lifetime personal best. The cross training from cycling gave me a very strong foundation, the long rides helped sustain my aerobic base and the bi-weekly/tri-weekly Zwift rides improved my capacity to thrive at Tempo and Threshold intensities like rarely before on the bike. Meanwhile I kept swimming strong twice a week in heated pool, and went to the gym minimum once a week, reinforcing full body strength. CROSS TRAINING!

Weeks passed by and I resumed running very very conservatively. I decided that I would toe the start line even unprepared, instead of running the risk of starting it limping because I injured myself for a third time. So that’s what I did, running only once a week, and for short distances. PRESERVE MY BODY!

*Apart from Marathon week, not much run training volume at all…*

With no time on my feet running, I decided to use the race to experiment and take risks. Nothing to lose, right? I’m quite good with Keto diet and Intermittent Fasting, I do have a Nutrition diploma as well as a Health Coach diploma, but to be honest it is more my own experiments over the years that made me some kind of expert at it. It’s another story but I have been plagued my inflammation due to intestinal issues for years and Keto has always helped, it’s just not sustainable for me all year long for years. Two weeks before the race I went full on Keto, with the idea of losing 2-3 kg and further improve my capacity to burn fat (which is already excellent given that I train fasted a lot, at any intensity). Why? Well, if I am lighter, the run will feel -and be- easier as I could gain 10sec/km (maybe 15?) for the same effort… not a marginal gain. Then, by not relying on food intake during the race, I eliminate the risk of gastric issues, which is indeed one of the gains you get from being a great fat burner. The risk that I took was to go all in and to stop the Keto diet only one day before the race: I had never stopped so close to a race as the switch back to Keto to non Keto can be disrupting. It worked just according to plan, as I was 3kg lighter on race day than 2 weeks before and only took 300 calories on race day with a wonderful feeling of sustained energy all along: FAT BURNING!

In any race, it is key to leverage on what technology can provide. We triathletes probably know it better than any other endurance athletes. Maurten gels are used by most elite runners as well as Nike shoes. I have used Maurten on occasions but never in races, and I have had a pair of technical Nike for years, not the last iteration of it but still amazingly light and responsive, which stayed on my shelves except for a 10k race in early December. Again, no harm trying this on a ‘race that is not even a race’. I tried them once in the two weeks leading to the race, and decided to use them on race day. USE PROVEN TECHNOLOGY!

So that was the situation one week before the race. During the lead-up I had discovered ice swimming, had recorded amazing performances on the bike, and had a decent list of things to try on race day. In that respect, no matter what happens on the Champs Elysées, the gains will have already overweighted any potential issue on race day, even a DNF.

The Sunday before race day, I started to cough. Then for 6 nights in a row, my cough got worse and worse and I had terrible nights waking up 20 times. Derailment #4. I was getting more and more tired. Saturday before the race I had to go back to bed at 8:30am, exhausted, and slept an extra 90min just to be functional enough to go and get the race number at the expo. Less than 24h before the race, I had no clue if I would race. The weather was meant to be cold but crisp, and the perspective of being on the start line of a huge race (yes, a race… finally Covid seems to be behind us…) was too enticing. I performed by pre-race routine at night, leaving for race morning the decision to race. MINDSET! AGAIN AND AGAIN!!

I woke up after a good night sleep. On the start line I thought about my race ‘strategy’. Go by feel, at Tempo, check HR and pace on occasion, but given the complete unknown territory I was going into, ‘trust my feeling’, like a Jedi apprentice. When I signed up I had to choose my intended pace, and I chose 3h15 marathon pace, because a sub 3h15 at my age would give me guaranteed entries or preferential treatment for the biggest marathons (Boston, NYC, London, etc.). It sounded like a great idea at the time, but none of my training was done at that pace, so I had no ambition to reach that objective. To my surprise though, the first 25k were in line with that pace, and even a tad faster. I wasn’t even trying, it was hard, but because it was 100% by feel, it was a hard effort I thought I could sustain for long, which I did. Obviously things got complicated at 28-29k, but thanks to my fat burning capacity, I didn’t go through the dreaded ‘bonking’ due to glycogen depletion, as I didn’t depend on glycogen to move. It was just muscle fatigue. Granted, with my last ‘long’ (21k) run made on Jan 30 and no other runs over 14k since then, I expected my body to start to suffer at some point. 14k before the end, I entered the pain cave, and didn’t leave it until the finish line. That’s probably when my mindset and experience -as well as my higher pain threshold gained through ice swimming- all paid off as I kept running hard until the end, in spite of pain and the potentially disheartening sensation of sliding down no matter what. By the time I reached 32k I knew 3h15 was out of reach but I kept fighting and didn’t lose so much ground, as I finished in 3h16’31. Could I have I done 3h15? No, I believe I executed the perfect race on that day given the conditions, I fought hard until the end and I am proud of what I did. Could I do sub 3h15 in the future? Well, the good news is: obviously, given the terrible preparation I had… it can only be better next time.

*Same face, same joy, just a bit more grey hair in my beard: Marathon hurts!*

What can we conclude?

1- the benefit of cross training, although known, is still underrated

2- when your training is not going according to plan, if you dial in your nutrition and leverage on the technology, you won’t compensate for what’s missing, but you can control the damage

3- your mindset and attitude are determining. Again, we know it, but I don’t think we understand it fully. I had all the reasons to be discouraged, but due to my own journey during the lead-up, I arrived on race day ready for the battle with no expectation and with a curious mind about how things would unfold: best place to be to perform optimally.

I am not saying this to show off or to look for ‘Like’ and ‘Ride On’ and ‘Kudo’. In fact, I have destroyed many races because I did none of the above. The recipe that worked this time may not work next time. I have over 20 years of endurance experience and muscle memory, so what worked for me might not work for many. Finally, this time it worked, but I am very far from my PB and I have two friends who clocked 2h35 and 2h41 that same weekend, so it is all relative.

Still, I hope this blog provides food for thought for you my readers and encourage some of you to explore new avenues.