Similar to any other sporting activity, to fare well in the Urbanathlon you’ll need to peak for it. The best way to do that is to increase your training intensity while decreasing your overall running mileage. That means you’ll be doing more sprint-based workouts – that means you may be more prone to injuries, so make sure you stretch sufficiently before each session. It’s also best to do a peaking workout during the final week before the race.

Weights Session
An intense gym workout can improve your sprint speed, reveals UK Shyam, the Singapore national 100m record holder. This is an excellent way to peak.

Use a gym-sprint combo to amp up your speed: find out your one-rep max with squats, pyramid towards that in your workout. Shyam does 140, 150, 160 and 190 kilogram (around his one-rep max) squats and nips out for track sprints in between sets, so as to maintain muscle elasticity. If your gym doesn’t have a track, try a set of sprinting drills: standing on the balls of your feet, bring your right or left knee up so that your thigh becomes parallel to the ground. While your arms swing freely, in a rapid motion bring up your other leg, that’s one repetition. Keep alternating legs (it’s like stationary sprinting) and do thirty repetitions each set.  

Track Sprints
Heading back to the running track yields some awesome benefits. Speed work forces your body to work harder at a higher intensity, and a study by the Center for Disease Control and the American College of Sports Medicine discovered that short bursts of exercise improve the athlete’s oxygen intake and increases the anaerobic capacity of the body by 28 per cent. Try this peaking schedule courtesy of Collin Leong, a running coach.

Sunday: 4 x 200m, 2 minutes recovery
Monday: 4 x 600m, 2 minutes recovery
Tuesday: 3 x 300m, 1.5 minute recovery
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 4 x 800m, 2 minute recovery
Friday: 3 x 1,000m, 1.5 minute recovery
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Race

Hill Workout
Hills are tough sessions but they can be as or more intense than sprints. What’s more, they offer a large amount of strength gain to your legs, almost like resistance training. “Gains in leg strength may be able to help you attain a wider stride length,” says Adrian Mok, endurance athlete and general manager of Polar Electro Singapore. However, if you don’t do this high intensity workout properly, you could be exposing yourself to knee injuries.

- Location: At a steep hill like Bukit Timah or Mount Faber, do a light, 10-15 minute warm up, preferably on a short slope to get your muscles used to the movement.

- Workout: Do a 60-90 second run up the slope (you don’t have to reach the top). Walk back down if you’re unused to hill running. Once you’re better at it, run up and jog down, gradually increasing the distance and reducing the time you need to climb the hill.

- Running Form: Here’s good hill running form – higher than usual knee lift, pumping your arms higher and more vigorously, a slight forward lean, and keeping your head up.

- Watch yourself: If you’re breathing hard and your pulse rate still hovers near your maximum heart rate, rest longer before starting again.

- Cool Down: Finish off with an easy 10-minute jog on flat ground, and do an easy swim the next day to loosen up.