Dubai is a funny place, there are so many things I have done here (nothing bad!) that I wouldn't do at home. Many people say it is a competitive environment full of Type A people. On one hand, one can take that as a positive, you always want to strive to do more because... well, everyone else is doing more! So you unintentionally or intentionally start to have more ambitions. For example, when I first came here and joined my running group, it was just to have a group to run with and a place to meet people. I remember being amazed at everyone's running backgrounds, dozens of marathons, ultras, trail runs, all these extreme things. I was a nobody with my measly 4 marathons at that point, 2 1/2 ironman's, and dozens of 1/2 marathons. So although I NEVER intended of EVER running a marathon when I "retired" in 2003, what do you know? Now I've already done 4 while I've been here! Then along comes the topic of ultra running, an "ultra" marathon is pretty much anything over a marathon, so anything over 42 km or 26 miles. Again, one of those things I ADAMANTLY said I would "NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER" do. Through these last years, many (MANY) people from my group have done this so called "AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and SUPER FUN" Ultra marathon called Two Oceans in Cape Town, S. Africa. "Bah!" I thought. I've already been there and I like to travel to new places. And also the marathon training is so intense I couldn't ever have imagined doing more. Then you get those comments such as, "It's not really worse than a marathon, you hardly feel it," "the training isn't THAT much different than the marathon," "If you did Dubai marathon and keep good fitness, it's just doing some longer runs." Like doing a longer walk in the park. Well, last summer I had a twinge of interest. I think when the group came back and everyone was sooo incredibly positive about it, I thought, "hmm... maybe it is time for a new challenge?" Well, long story short, one friend convinced another, and the next thing I knew pretty much all my BFF's here were doing it, and I get roped in. So of course having so many people doing it makes it exciting and fun, all to have something to work towards together. So there you have it, group pressure wins again! We even created a WhatsApp "Two Oceans" group to share training tips... and of course our woes of niggles and injuries and on the contrary, over indulgences sometimes ("I ate too much last night, how much do I have to run to burn it off?" hahah).
But here we are, I have ever imagined I would do something like this!
Soo, more boring details to come in subsequent blogs, but this one I want to designate to my training as.... darn it, although there were definitely highs and lows for this thing, as my running friends have already warned me, the lows will quickly disappear from memory (darn it, why does that happen!!!) and only the high's remain and next thing you know, we'll all be signing up for the next one. Noooooooooooo!!! Soo, as again I am ADAMANTLY saying "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO way" to another one, in any case, I would like to remind myself as to my training program and can always use this as a reference for any other suckers that want to do this. Haha.
Okay, so I'm living in Dubai.... about to do one of the known hilliest ultra's. What to do? Do the best you can! To summarize lots of time reading all this ultra training stuff, key to ultra training is:
- Running on tired legs, so running back to back runs (back to back long runs or things like one evening and the next morning, etc)
- Up'ing your longer weekly runs compared to a marathon (minimum short run to be 12km and get up to 18km for longest week run)
- Higher weekly mileage, so getting at least a couple of 100km weeks
- Hill training the best you can! Even if it includes parking lot ramps and bridges
- Stair climbing - you don't hear about this that often, and this is my personal recommendation, but I thought it REALLY REALLY REALLY helped. I ALWAYS feel super strong on uphill and I contribute a lot to those hours in the stairwell or on the stair climber!
Weekly exercise/training routine (more or less):
Sundays: Garhoud bridges tempo (it's this long bridge we have that some some short "steep" hills and then some longer ones. I built up from 8km to 10km to 13km to a few peak weeks at 15km and then back down to 10km during taper time. Then did an hour of stairwell climbing in a 80 flour building by me and then did personal training for an hour.
Mondays: Dubai Masters Swim Club hour swim
Tuesdays: LSD run (long slow distance) BUT with some surges. Built up from 15km to 18km. Then did an hour of stair climber machine in my gym and then strength work.
Wednesdays: 8km to 10km to 12km (peak weeks) of interval training.
Thursdays: Hot bikram yoga HBY for 90 min or off day
Fridays: Loooooooong run, got well into the 30km's for awhile and even went up to 47km! Then did 90 minutes HBY
Saturdays: Off day or when I was in peak training, did another 20km'ish run
Weekly averages:
8 weeks to go: 17km (week after the Dubai marathon)
7 weeks to go: 65km
6 weeks to go: 53 km (week of RAK 1/2 marathon)
5 weeks to go: 86km
4 weeks to go: 100km* (evening run followed by morning run)
3 weeks to go: 105km* (Long morning run and next day comparably long run in Hatta for the hills)
2 weeks to go: 70km (week of Hatta Hills 1/2 marathon)
1 week to go: 52km
*PEAK weeks: So I usually run 4 times a week, but those weeks I ran 5 times a week. 4 weeks out did a Thursday night 21 km run and then Friday morning did 34km. 3 weeks out did 35km on Friday morning and then did 25km Saturday morning (in Hatta).
Unlike many others, I did not do a training program, I kinda followed along with others and tweaked it to how it worked with my schedule. For example, even with the marathon training have somehow become an early bird, so all my weekly running was at 5am, which meant A LOT of 4 something a.m. wake-ups (sadly, got used to it), which meant MANY early night sleeps, literally before 10am, which sometimes was tough because have 2 late-shifts at work a week so get home at 8:30pm and the other night have swimming and get home at 9pm, so a quick turn-over before bed-time! As many who are training for things like ultras, some things have to give. I didn't want to give up my other cross training activities, obviously didn't want to give up on my masters program studies, so next up was social life. So that was a bit of a damper, but probably better as can hardly stay up past 10pm anyway! Hahah.
I won't lie and say that ALL my training was easy breezy. It was literally the start of the peak weeks when ... let's just say had a bit of a setback with some sacrum, pelvis, and low back issues. Alas, all got sorted, thank gawd am in the profession, and although wasn't 100% for the Ultra, which was tough mentally as am not used to going into races not feeling completely awesome, but it is what it is.
Hmmm..... any other boring details I want to share with myself? Would I change anything in the training? I really don't think I would, I really did the best I could for the time that I had and just logistics. I am super glad that I did that Hatta hills practice run and then the week later did that 1/2 marathon.... not a lot compared to what others may suggest or recommend, but it worked for me! Also, I mostly did yoga once a week, but a few times did it twice a week which I believe really "saves" me, feels amazing and love the stretching I am normally so bad at. Also swimming, wish I could have squeezed in more swimming, but no time!!!
Next up, blog Two Oceans 2/3 - race weekend!!!
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