It's December, it's grey outside and I am going home for Christmas. Not much is going on in our little village. I receive a message from a friend: "Hey, I signed up for the Edinburgh Marathon. Check it out!" I ate too much on the day and thought this has to stop. So I signed up. I probably didn't quite comprehend that I signed up for a marathon and not a walk to the pub.
Richard starts with it is OK to be nervous. I feel glad. I am still not convinced that my spontaneous sign up was a smart move. Commitment and how to approach the training comes first. "We all have an existing life involving family, friends, and work. Tell them about your plan and what commitment this takes from you in regards to training." Family, friends, and work are supportive if they know that this is important for you. You might still get questions like why would you ever do that? Fair question. But you decided this is what you want to do. Going running at lunchtime and feel stressed about getting back to your desk? Work benefits from you being healthy. As long as you get your stuff done and are not doing your long run during Tuesday lunch that is probably quite fine.
We study formulas: Stress + Rest = Growth. Nice sounds like math I would enjoy. Yes, we need to train our legs. We need to train our lungs. We need to find out what food works. But we also need to recover. If we just go and go and go, we might get injured. We will not give our body time to recover and get stronger. Best recovery options:
Cool, we run slow, moderate and fast and feel good getting better. Besides training our legs, we also need to think of the rest of our body. It is important to avoid a misbalance between legs and arms. So arms need to be trained just as well as the legs. When we run, our arms conduct the speed. If our arms are getting tired and just hang down on both sides, it will make us slower and misbalance our running style. For now, I decided to go for the Bring Sally Up challenge. Yeah no worries, not once did I make the 3:45 minutes so far. But I am on it!
Final take away: Smile! A smile on your face can change everything. Remember the last time someone smiled at you surprisingly? Isn't it nice? You can support yourself by smiling, suggesting your body that this is fun and a good thing to do - also when it sometimes hurts. Keep running!
Too late! I am in. So better get going. My friend suggests a marathon workshop hosted by London City Runners to learn the theory of how we should approach this, common myths and pitfalls and how to get around having a good day running 42km (26 miles)! The 10 pounds investment for the ticket was absolutely worth every penny. Here a summary of what we learned, in case you are in the same boat as us, looking with a little bit of fear towards the start line.
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| Photo by Morgan Sarkissian on Unsplash |
We talked about health. Should you stop to train at some point if you feel under the weather? We didn't go into scientific details but as a rule of thumb if your nose is running you are fine. If you have a cough, stop. Don't force yourself. If you have a bad day and you just can't do it take it easy and recover. One rescheduled or canceled practice run will not stop you from finishing your race. Injuring yourself, on the other hand, could be a show stopper for the big race or even running in general. Listen to your body!
The room is very attentive and asks lots of questions. Up next: Nutrition. Feeling guilty we look down on the pint of beer in our hands and think we should not have had that. We discuss that it is perfectly fine to have a beer or a cake. We should just consume everything in moderation and thinking of what we consume right now. 10 pints at once might not be the best preparation for a marathon. Make sense. Another rule of thumb, look down on your plate. Does it look colorful? Then hopefully it contains vitamins and other good stuff for your body, rather than colorants. We discuss what to eat and drink on the big day. Nuts and gels are recommended. Which one is what everyone wants to know. It depends. A lot of things depend because we are not the same person. We vary in speed, height, size, the food we burn, what our stomach takes well and whatnot. So practice. Take the food that you like and try it out during your long practice runs. Eat some nuts and see how you feel. Buy a gel and see if your stomach is taking it well. Consuming water is obviously good and healthy but be wearing only consuming lots of water as this can swamp out electrolytes which you need. There is a thing called hydration taps that you can add to the water so that you don't lose all the minerals. And the big question how often shall we refuel? Rule of thumb: every 30-45 minutes. You need to keep going for quite some time, so don't wait until you are completely exhausted. It takes time for your body to process the food and liquids. You can see there is a pattern of lots of trial and error so best to get some training in not just to train lungs and legs. Also, there is no rule that you actually have to run your whole marathon. If you have a run-walk-run approach, why not make use of the easier walking parts to fuel.
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| Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash |
We study formulas: Stress + Rest = Growth. Nice sounds like math I would enjoy. Yes, we need to train our legs. We need to train our lungs. We need to find out what food works. But we also need to recover. If we just go and go and go, we might get injured. We will not give our body time to recover and get stronger. Best recovery options:
1. Sleep
2. Post-exercise nutrition
3. Active recovery (e.g. stretching)
4. Sports massages or foam roller
Sports massages might be expensive and not for everyone but Richard swears on them. Latest Wednesday before the race and earliest Wednesday/Thursday after the race.
Cool, we feel to know lots about food and relaxation and how to approach our family. How about how we feel? What does our brain have to say to this? We have to condition not just our body but also our mind to tackle 42 kilometers. Things that can help are having some sort of diary. That can be handwritten or in the form of a Strava entry or similar apps. There might be a moment when you doubt yourself and your brain is convinced that you haven't done enough. You surely have and with any kind of diary, you have proof that is true. It can also help to learn from bad runs. Having stitches all the way through a run? Maybe you noticed that you ate something strange continuously and it actually doesn't work well for your body. Keeping track and training your mind will help to find these things and get rid of them to make things fun and easier for you.
"Excellence can only be achieved today!" Yes if you are under the weather don't force it. But if it is just this kind of 'This was a hard day at the office' feeling, don't just sit down and binge-watch the next Netflix series. Show up. Attitude can follow behavior.
Goals. We all have one. It might not be a time goal. It might just be, show up and do it. Richard has an ABC strategy, for example:
Goal C: Show up and finish
Goal B: Finish in 5 hours
Goal A: Finish in 4h and 45 minutes
This gives yourself options to succeed. If we want it or not we have a goal in mind and if it is only one specific one, we might give up halfway if we feel it is not going well. With the A, B, C option you can always fall back to another goal that you have.
The training plan! Which one? How often? What commitment is needed? Again one of those where you need to find the one that works for you. You have lots on and need to plan your training around that? That is OK and you just need to adjust the plan accordingly. The recommendation is to run to effort and not pace. The effort is measured in heart rate, so, for example, a training plan might state a moderate pace, slow pace, fast pace. Get to know what is slow, moderate and fast for you and train the different paces. This will help you grow. That was super strange for me at first. When I go running, I grab my headphones, listen to high beat electro all the way and run at maximum speed. So what I am training is to run at maximum pace for a set distance. That is what I am good at and it will be hard to improve as this is the only thing I actually practice. That was a hard one to swallow and I will need to change my training patterns if I want to improve.
Another one, run to time and not distance. For example, head out for an hour run and see afterward how far you have come. Again a thing that goes against my current training patterns but I will give it a try and Richards swears to it.
How many pairs of shoes do you need? The recommendation is to switch between runs. Again the model of the shoes is a personal question. Our feet all vary so you need to find the right shoe for you.
The training plan! Which one? How often? What commitment is needed? Again one of those where you need to find the one that works for you. You have lots on and need to plan your training around that? That is OK and you just need to adjust the plan accordingly. The recommendation is to run to effort and not pace. The effort is measured in heart rate, so, for example, a training plan might state a moderate pace, slow pace, fast pace. Get to know what is slow, moderate and fast for you and train the different paces. This will help you grow. That was super strange for me at first. When I go running, I grab my headphones, listen to high beat electro all the way and run at maximum speed. So what I am training is to run at maximum pace for a set distance. That is what I am good at and it will be hard to improve as this is the only thing I actually practice. That was a hard one to swallow and I will need to change my training patterns if I want to improve.
Another one, run to time and not distance. For example, head out for an hour run and see afterward how far you have come. Again a thing that goes against my current training patterns but I will give it a try and Richards swears to it.
How many pairs of shoes do you need? The recommendation is to switch between runs. Again the model of the shoes is a personal question. Our feet all vary so you need to find the right shoe for you.
Cool, we run slow, moderate and fast and feel good getting better. Besides training our legs, we also need to think of the rest of our body. It is important to avoid a misbalance between legs and arms. So arms need to be trained just as well as the legs. When we run, our arms conduct the speed. If our arms are getting tired and just hang down on both sides, it will make us slower and misbalance our running style. For now, I decided to go for the Bring Sally Up challenge. Yeah no worries, not once did I make the 3:45 minutes so far. But I am on it!
Final take away: Smile! A smile on your face can change everything. Remember the last time someone smiled at you surprisingly? Isn't it nice? You can support yourself by smiling, suggesting your body that this is fun and a good thing to do - also when it sometimes hurts. Keep running!
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