I Prepared To Run Marathon for A Year and Injured Myself Before the Race
Lessons from My Training Journey
Not realizing the grounds were not level, I accidentally twisted my ankle beside that person.
I heard a cracking sound.
I stopped suddenly and thought to myself, "Shit, shit, shit."
The sun had just set, and it was dark. Thus, I didn't want to move away from the road because of cars passing by.
I saw someone far away walking on the sidewalk. I slowly moved over to the side, letting that person walk past me as I ran through them.
The half-marathon that I had been preparing for months was days away.
I suffered an injury, which meant forfeiting the race. I had invested so much time and effort into it.
Felt devastated at first, then came to feel furious and depressed
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Reflecting on the journey, running has changed physically and philosophically. The countless early morning runs, the moments of pushing through discomfort, and the discipline and consistency I built were meaningful. My running journey has taught me that things just don't go as planned and that it is okay to let go and move forward.
In this article, I wanted to share with you that training for a marathon—an event without completing the race—has offered me profound lessons about navigating life and career, managing discomfort, and conserving energy.
Go Slow to Go Fast
I increased my weekly mileage once from 3 miles to 5 miles. At a 5-mile run, the pain started to drill down my knees. I was not able to keep running for two weeks. This incident regressed my efforts to the 3-mile pace, which delayed my growth.
It is important to take care of your body as an athlete. A single injury could have restarted their entire endurance training journey.
Don't increase your running workload by more than 10% weekly. Give your legs enough time to rest before running a longer run that week. If you don't feel like running or are exhausted, don't go at full speed.
We often calculate how much our physical condition works with our VO2Max, and one way to increase your VO2Max is by running in Zone 2 heart rate zone. These heart rate zones are a method of organizing running workouts based on your effort. They range from Zone 1 to Zone 5, where 1 is very light-intensity effort, usually brisk walking, to 5, equivalent to sprinting.
Going fast doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. It may be good in the short term, but it may be detrimental in the long term.
The caliber of good running growth is not how fast you can run for X amount of miles but how fast you can run for X amount of miles in association with your heart rate zone. For example, a person running an average of 8 minutes per mile by running Zone 4 has less VO2 max than a person who has an average of 8 minutes per mile by running in Zone 2. The fastest marathon runner in the world, Kipchoge had a speed of 4:30 minutes per mile in his zone 2-mile pace.
This also speaks to how we navigate our careers. As software engineers, we start from multiple paths and directions. Some people value total compensation at the beginning of their career journey, thinking that that is all that matters. However, they soon realize that the initial boost in total compensation impedes their career growth and is detrimental to them in the long term.
The key takeaway from running is that long-term success requires careful planning, patience, and sometimes restraint. Taking a lower-paying job with a higher possibility of growth can be a great option for long-term success.
Building your foundation, brick by brick, and slowly increasing your progress load will help prevent burnout. As a result, speed will follow naturally.
Embrace Controlled Discomfort
Sometimes, when you run, you feel like giving up. But growth appears when pushed through.
Aside from the low aerobic workout training, there is also the speed workout, in which I push myself to the brink of being unable to breathe.
The workout doesn't have to be short and intense; it can also be a longer-than-usual mile run that makes you feel like it requires a bigger-than-usual effort.
People who run often mention pushing through the lactate threshold as the best way to run faster. Lactate produced by a higher effort is cleared faster than our body can clear it.
This is where fatigue happens. Your feet started to feel like jelly, and each step you took felt like a brick had been placed on top of it.
But running through that feeling is key to increasing the speed and growth of your running journey. This is the key to running faster for a longer period.
In addition, a study indicates that endurance athletes can experience more intense pain and have a higher pain threshold than non-athletes. This is because they have to embrace pain in their regular training and use various mental tactics to deal with different types of discomfort.
Wolfgang Freund, a German scientist, completed a study on the pain tolerance of ultra-endurance runners. The study asked endurance and non-endurance athletes to hold their hands in ice water for as long as possible. Freund noticed that the non-athlete control group lasted an average of 96 seconds before giving up, but the endurance athlete runner made it to the 3-minute safety cut-off.
This mindset and grit have cascaded to other parts of my life. The recent events that occurred to me about a failed construction project is a moment where things get uncomfortable. Running helps me endure those moments of controlled discomfort, which helps make my life more resilient.
Bridging this gap in software engineering, you may have a difficult conversation, a challenging work assignment, or endure the promotion process. Learning to endure these moments longer than anyone could will help you reach that extra mile and reach your milestone.
It's Not About the Speed; It Is About the Energy
One important tip for preparing for a marathon is to find a way to conserve energy, which will extend your endurance over the long term.
The key is to manage your energy expenditure throughout the race by pacing yourself, obtaining the proper nutrition, and allowing your body to utilize fuel efficiently over a long distance.
I once ran too fast after mile 5, making mile 10 feel like climbing Mount Everest. I put too much energy into the beginning and eventually ran out of fuel to continue running mile 10.
Energy can be analogous to bets. You want to conserve some money to have enough to play for the long haul.
This also mirrors how our fast-paced culture thinks about money. You don't want to be overly enthusiastic and put all your bets on one thing. Many people aim to earn a million dollars by the age of 30, but what's the rush? What's the difference between becoming a millionaire by 30 versus 35? What happens if you try to get there as fast as possible but end up burning out and needing a longer period to recover?
Closing
Training marathons taught me far more than just how to run long distances. It was a profound exercise in patience, energy management, embracing discomfort, and ultimately letting go.
In reality, life is a marathon. In order to go fast in life, you need to start by going slow. You will need to push through and embrace the discomfort in life to experience real growth. Lastly, the finish line is not how quickly you can get there but how you manage your energy and resilience.
Although I missed my first half-marathon due to an injury four days before that, I will not stop my marathon-running journey. I will be looking forward to the next half-marathon by the end of the year and diligently training for it.