Michael Ovens hit the wall repeatedly in early marathons due to poor nutrition and unstructured training. After collapsing at mile 16 in 2000, he switched to Dr. Phil Maffetone's low-heart-rate training and cut refined sugars. He then ran injury-free with faster times and higher weekly mileage.
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And the first marathon, it was a 5-hour 15, and I was just in no shape for it at all. Nutrition was nowhere. I was probably 2 stone overweight. I felt like my knees were gonna fall off about halfway through. Yeah, my hips were gone. Just literally crawled over the line and vowed never to run a marathon again, really. So that was the start of my running career, yeah. And how did it go from that marathon going to the next one? Well, I didn't run another marathon for 5 or 6 years. I vowed never to run a marathon. This distance is too far, you know, I'm too unfit, it's too bad for your legs. But I did have the running bug, you know, I did enjoy it. It does give you that good feeling, endorphins. So I thought, well, I'll stick to half marathons, build up slowly. So I think I took my first half marathon as a 2-hour 20. Again, very overweight, very, poor nutrition, no training plan really. Every run was just run as fast as you can every time. Getting injured constantly. Yeah, but I still managed to somehow bring my half marathon time down over the years to about a 1:50, a 1:48, which I was quite happy with. But yeah, every run was just the maximum intensity. Every run was trying to beat your 5K, beat your 10K. There was no, there was no plan at all. There was lots of injuries, lots of setbacks, and wondering why I wasn't losing any weight at all doing it, 'cause my nutrition was so poor. You can't outrun a poor nutrition. So I was just getting setbacks and stopping for a few months here and there, but first time I ever experienced just the simple things about heart rate zones and running at low intensity and planning your week, planning, you know, stepping up the, the training and having rest weeks and just all the sort of basics for a good training plan. So that's what really got me into it. And I guess it was the start of my low heart rate training. So from there I thought, well, I can tackle a marathon again now. I've got this under my belt, let's do this. So I signed up for the same marathon, I did a 5-hour one in the Jersey Marathon. Again, no real nutrition, I was starting to understand a bit more about heart rate zones, but still nutrition was poor. The fueling was poor, and without realizing it, I went off so very fast. Looking back now, I got to my lactate threshold, or to 20 beats above my max, 25 beats above my max heart rate, within the first 3 or 4 miles. So by mile 16, I was still feeling good, I was chatting to people, yeah, I'm gonna try to do a 3:15 or 3:20, I'm doing good, and I went to, Put my foot down and there's absolutely nothing left at all. And my legs seized up and within a couple of miles I was shuffling and a couple more miles I was walking. I felt like I'd been hit by a bus. I was cramping in places I didn't really realize you could get cramp in, like the groin and the— it was an awful experience, the worst experience ever and worse than the 5-hour marathon. Crawling to the finish. I think I got over the line in a 3:38 in the end, which is, which is good, but it was just horrible, horrible experience. And what year was that? That was in 2000 and that was 2017, I think. All right. So then literally the Monday after, I was googling, you know, what the hell happened? What's, what's a bonk? What's I was like, how can you stop this? And that's when I first found your PDF about the low heart rate training and the Maffetone training. Also, the nutritional side of things as well, cutting out the sugar, trying to, less refined carbs, all these sort of things are just such a massive boost to your training. Everything at Maff from then onwards, and I could run much, much further per week. My injuries all but went away. Yeah, it's really revolutionary. And the way it's so counterintuitive, the way that you actually speed up. So as soon as I found that, that low heart rate training coupled with cutting out all sugar, I say those are the two key things. Just cut sugar out of your diet completely. I used to have sugar in my tea and coffee and sweet tooth, chocolate, and lots of biscuits. And it's quite hard to cut it out initially, but once you've, once you've got rid of it for a week or two, you really don't miss it. So I think remove all sugar, train at a low heart rate. Those are the two, the two key things I think that's seen the improvements.
