The mother of all marathon drama - Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon 2018 (The Prelude)

Read also our earlier trip report too:

Day 1 (Wednesday): Hakodate

Day 2 (Thursday): Hakodate to Sapporo
Day 3 (Friday): Asahikawa to Biei
Day 4 (Saturday): Asahikawa to Abashiri

WARNING
non-runners may need to skip reading this post.

The mother of all marathon drama - Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon 2018

Registering to run in the Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon 2018 was the start of the mother of all drama for me. Brace for it.

Pre-Registration
I didn’t plan to run in Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon or any other marathon for the year.

Rather, I had set my sights on another run in Japan – Asahikawa Half Marathon, with a cut-off time of 2:40. But after corresponding with the Asahikawa Half Marathon committee in June and realising how troublesome it was to register as a foreigner living outside Japan and with no Japan address (and the committee didn’t offer any other alternative for me to register), I ditched the plan to run in the half marathon.

It was not until I ran in Bangkok Airways Phuket Half Marathon in early August that the idea of running in Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon 2018 really became a serious option for me.

All I needed to do was to convince Hubby to agree to me running in it.

But there was another problem. My 2-year old Polar V800 GPS watch died on me a few days before Phuket Half Marathon. I ran in the half marathon wearing a normal watch and completely relied on the distance markers on the route to know the distance.

And as we runners would say, if your run is not captured by GPS (or uploaded to Strava), it didn’t happen. Seriously, up till now, I felt that half marathon that I did in Phuket didn’t happen. Hahaha

Registration
I registered for Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon 2018 the week after Phuket Half Marathon and only then started to seriously study the route map, its elevation and its cut-off time.

That’s when panic started to set in.

My last marathon happened 10 months ago and it took me 6 hours plus to finish it on a flat route (I ‘just happen’ to have no training for that one too) so when I looked at the route map and the marathon had a long steep climb as early as KM5 with the first checkpoint (CP) located at KM14.4, I got worried about reaching the first CP in time.

I had not been training regularly for the past months and most of my mileage up to then (August) were from races that I entered and the timing were all rather dismal.

Time for some drastic action.

I contacted my friend Bismi (of whom will be known as Koc from hereafter), and asked for his advice and training guidance.

Remember, my Polar watch had died on me and I had no running watch at that time?

Koc’s first requirement was for me to get a GPS watch with a HR monitor because he wanted to monitor my progress and training based on my heart rate.

I was reluctant at the thought of buying a new watch but Hubby took a pity on me and handed me his old watches. The thing was, one watch has GPS function but no HRM (heart rate monitor) and another was a fitness tracker with optical HRM but no GPS function.

What to do? I didn’t want to spend money on getting an expensive pair of running watch just yet so I opted to wear them both. Cannot be choosy when you want free stuff. Hahaha

One for the GPS. One for the HRM. Then, I submitted an excel sheet report to Koc showing the datas captured by both watches.

Training
Koc instructed me to commit to stairs workout of 45 minutes to 1 hours, twice a week and a weekend run of 15km to 25km.

Now here’s the thing – this was to be the minimum of my training.

It turned out that was what I managed to do anyway. The bare minimum.

Life does have a habit of getting in way and life does take priority a lot of time.

It was 7 weeks to marathon day when I asked Koc for his help.

Our priority within that 7 weeks was for my endurance and not for speed.

Week 1
I did 3 runs in the first week and one 30 minutes stairs workout (5 sets of 11 floors). Things were looking up despite the rush for my sister’s wedding that week. I had high hopes training will be on track for the next 6 weeks.

Total weekly mileage (run, walk, stairs): 30km

Week 2
It was the Hari Raya Haji week so I had an extra day to put in a long run.

I started my long run regime with a run-walk repetitions of running 1K then walking 100m. The run-walk regime helped to stabilise my heart rate and avoided it from getting way too high into Zone 5.

The run-walk regime continued even until race day and it certainly did help me run much much comfortably.

I did another long run of 19K on Sunday.

Koc reminded me to have a day's rest before doing any long run to ensure the legs are fresh.

Total weekly mileage: 43.90km

Week 3
I was supposed to do a long run on Sunday with Koc but I wasn’t feeling well on Friday and informed Koc that I wanted to ditch our Sunday run plan.

Apart from 2 stairs workout that I did on Monday and Saturday, there was no running mileage up to Saturday.

I felt better on Sunday morning so I decided to run around my apartment and somehow managed to do 21.1km in 3-hours.

Total weekly mileage: 37.70km

Week 4
This was a week of almost non-existent running mileage.

Fortunately, I managed to slot the important stairs workout on Monday and Saturday (both for an hour, 8 sets x 11 floors) and was mighty glad to be able to slot in a 13K on Sunday.

Total weekly mileage: 22km

Week 5
It was fortunate that Monday was a public holiday (a replacement for Agong’s birthday which fell on Sunday) so I managed to slot in a 16K run then a stairs workout on Wednesday for an hour (8 sets x 11 floors).

I was supposed to join the SP Half Marathon in Sungai Petani that weekend and had traveled to Sungai Petani but my mom passed away late Friday night so of course we ditched everything to return home for her last visit.

Total weekly mileage: 29km

Week 6
It was two weeks before my marathon.

Hubby had asked me whether I wanted to abort the plan to run in Okhotsk-Abashiri Marathon 2018, completely understanding if I didn’t feel up to run in it.

But somehow I found that I felt relieved when I went out to run so I decided to go ahead with the plan, despite the less than favourable training that I had managed to do so far.

Normally this would be a taper week but how to taper if training pun tak cukup?

I did a long run on Monday (it was a public holiday again) while waiting for Son to finish his extra add maths class at school, doing loops around Lake Garden.

I did another run on Tuesday, an 11K in the evening and find it to be rather calming for me. Then an hour of stairs workout on Wednesday.

I didn’t manage to put in anymore workout until Sunday and that’s when I did my last long run before my marathon at 2XU Compression Run.

The aim for 2XU Compression Run was to take it easy, run with a controlled easy effort and finish with still plenty of gas in me.

Almost all of my training run for the past weeks had been done in the relatively flat route around my apartment compound.

Employing the run-walk regime even during the race had helped me to feel good even after 21K despite the many uphill sections in the route. Yet I still managed to shave off a few minutes from my two previous half marathon time that I did Phuket and NPE Duo Highway Challenge.

Total weekly mileage: 58km (the highest todate)

Race Week
I couldn’t make time to slot in either running or stairs workout before our flight to Hokkaido o Tuesday.

We did a hike up to Mount Hakodate on Wednesday then to Bogakudai on Friday. This, despite Koc’s constant reminder to rest and stay fresh for my marathon. I had hoped that soaking in onsens on alternate evenings would help ease any tightness in my legs and to help me feel relaxed.

I only managed to slot in a short run on Thursday morning and was feeling worried whether all these would be enough for me to beat the cut-off time at all three checkpoints during the race and finished before the official marathon cut off time of 6:30.

When you haven’t been running much, didn’t do anything above 21K for the last 9 months, don’t run fast, even a 6 hours 30 minute marathon seemed daunting.

Hubby and Son told me to trust myself and Koc did too.

But then, both Hubby and Son also reminded me how they had to wait for me to finish my run at Fujisan Marathon, until they fell asleep on the couch of a nearby rest area located at the Finish Line.

Not particularly helpful lah...

So what happen next?

I’ll tell you in my next post, OK?

Stay tune for The Race Recap. Dun dun dun...