October 15, 2019
Running For Life With Riana Montisano
Riana Montisano joined Coached in October 2017, after a bad experience with a former coach left her injured and unmotivated. This is her story.
Riana Montisano joined Coached in October 2017, after a bad experience with a former coach left her injured and unmotivated.
Through a friend, she heard about our holistic approach to performance and was intrigued.
After “stalking Coached on Instagram” she decided to sign up and see what our programme was all about. She built her training plan in Coached and started training.
With heart rate zones now assigned to manage her intensity, her training paces were significantly slower than she was used to.
Throughout her first few weeks on our programme, the little voice in her head was whispering, “Is that it? I’m not tired at all. How is running like this going to help my performance?”
As time passed, Riana started to see progress. She realised that “all the little niggles I’d been experiencing were starting to disappear and my pace was back, BUT, at a significantly lower effort and heart rate than before.”
Before her first race, since joining Coached, she devoured the race execution guides we provide our athletes and was motivated to run a smart race. She didn’t achieve her PB in that race, but was “much happier and felt stronger than in previous races. I loved the feeling of passing people in the last few KM’s as they faded, and I continued to run strong.”
Cut Race Times, Not Corners.
Racing at your potential and enjoying training is easy when you’re following the right programme.
As the months passed, Riana continued to race and refine her racing skills. We made some tweaks to her programme based on her progress. We increased the volume of her training a little, and we added more strength work to address fatigue in the latter stages of a marathon.
In April of this year, she lined up in the London Marathon ready to put everything to the test. She’d done the work, but could she translate that into a great result?
“I ran the race I’d always wanted. I ran a consistent pace throughout, didn’t cramp and ran a significant PB. I had a happy and healthy race with no injuries.”
Her execution was so good, I compared her pacing consistency with Eliud Kipchoge, the race winner, and used it in an example of how to pace in a previous article that I wrote.
So what’s next for Riana?
“I’ll continue to race, but I am running for sustainability because I want to continue running for as long as I can. I have an uncle who is 74 and just finished a full marathon, and when I look at him, I want to be like that when I grow up.”
Video: Zoe Tan
Ben Pulham