Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Run/walk marathon




I ran Tokyo Marathon this past Sunday. 

I executed pretty well on my plan.  I did my weird run/walk tactic which seemed to help me make it to the finish line on limited training, and which seemed to puzzle so many spectators and other runners.  I ran 4:30, then walked 30 seconds, ran 4:30, walked 30 seconds, etc. from the start through about 33 kilometers after-which I only ran through to the finish.  The first couple walk breaks I found the course extremely crowded but after a few kilometers I had plenty of space to walk without interfering with the pace of surrounding runners.  I was surging pretty strongly off the walks.  At one point around 25-30k I had fantasies of dropping below 4 minute per kilometer pace and breaking 3 hours.  But around 32k my legs started feeling really bad.  I wished I could switch to swimming or biking (or sitting) for awhile.   I am glad I did the run/walk thing as annoying as it can be.  If anything I might have been better to have taken walk breaks all the way to the end. I plan to resort to the run/walk technique again in future runs, though hopefully not frequently.  

Here are my splits -- 






3 comments:

TokyoRacer said...

Interesting! Yes, you were going pretty fast, considering the walk breaks.
Well, Galloway always claimed that 3-hour runners could use this technique, but nobody believed him (4 or 5, yes, but 3? No way...)

Jon in Tokyo said...

I have never heard of this.
Why on earth are you doing this walk/run thing?
Good to see you out there on Sunday.
Also saw you finish on TV....looked very relaxed.

Lisa said...

Great Job! And thank you for the Starbucks and confidence before! :) I beat my first time goal of 4:30 (4:23). Nowhere near your time, but ...well, there's always time for real training. ha

BTW- are you doing Kamakura OWS again this year? When/where is registration?