A marathon awakens in those who run it, a mixture of love and hate. Although it is difficult to explain, all the accumulated suffering along the several meters of race, all the pains, punctures and injuries that the body accumulates disappear once we cross that finish line, as the endorphins invade our body to fill us with satisfaction, and what not to say, also happiness. There is one more thing, something far better than any other feeling, one that nobody can ever take away from us: a good dose of self-esteem for having overcome such a massive challenge.
Not everyone can face a long distance race, much less without prior preparation. For someone to aim at an objective such as a marathon, he/she must have been training for some time and should have done other races before; you certainly have to be in an indispensable condition.
If you plan to run a marathon and haven’t done any other race before, you should start with lower objectives. If, on the other hand, you are ready to take the leap and dare with the longest race, keep reading because then, we are going to guide you on how you should prepare.
When we are facing such an extenuating test as the Marathon, it is not strange that we feel the obvious distrust of those who have never faced this test. In the case of those who have already done so, the sensation of failing or not being able to achieve what we achieved before is perceived; This is why the mental strategy of each marathoner is so important. Whoever has his mind as an ally, has the most powerful tool as an athlete.
PREPARE YOUR STRATEGY
Running a marathon is a very ambitious goal, especially for those who do it for the first time and even for those who run on a regular basis. Make no mistake, training is the basis and we will have to accumulate a large number of kilometers before being able to face this race with guarantees. You have to do it in an intelligent and planned way, only in this way you will save yourself the many trips and injuries that the new runner encounters and even sometimes experienced ones.
Collect all the information you can about how to prepare and consult with experts or at least with experience about the training needed for a marathon. They will guide you on the details of the running technique, the physical conditioning, the training distances and even which race to choose for the first time or other relevant aspects unknown to the ‘amateur’ runner. A medical check-up that includes a basic physical and cardiopulmonary examination, a blood test that includes blood count, biochemistry and renal function, as well as a baseline electrocardiogram is not a bad idea. Or an echocardiogram if there is any alteration in the first.
TRAIN PROGRESSIVELY
One of the most frequent questions of the athlete patient in the specialist’s office after suffering an injury or having undergone an intervention is to know when they can start running safely. This will depend on the type of injury, the type of intervention and the characteristics of the athlete, but we must be aware that the impact of the race on foot is one of the most harmful mechanisms that exist and not all people have a morphotype favorable for the race. That is, there are people with greater predisposition to injure themselves than others based on their size, weight, age, morphology and physical condition.
In the case of injury, and also to prepare a marathon from scratch, you have to introduce the race stepwise in terms of distances and intensities and let the body adapt. This is a process that can last several months in the person who starts from a low physical condition or who is not used to running on foot. If you are already a regular runner, we must also increase the distances and intensities in a very progressive way to avoid an injury due to overload or physical signs of overtraining.
MOTIVATE YOURSELF
Motivation! Motivation! Motivation! that is for us, the best ingredient in each marathon. A decline in your performance can become graphic due to negative thoughts in the mind; negative experiences that contribute to an almost assured defeat.
We will have to use all the tools at hand to achieve success in a marathon. Always think about something concrete, which surely has happened to you both in practice and in real races. Remember that time when you started very well and when you arrived in a certain area, you began to feel tired, down, lacking confidence and ended up aborting the race. That negative experience, later, in another training or practice, can lead you to failure or it will weigh you down and stop you from achieving the objective. Do you realize the importance of the mind?
I’m sure you definitely want to triumph and have positive experiences that intensify the positivity and confidence in your performance in practices and careers, you need to accept the negative impact that the mind has when it focuses on weaknesses or negative circumstances. At a certain moment, we can use it in the opposite direction, with the same force, but causing the opposite effect. We are talking about focusing on positive aspects and constant mental orders that increase the physical and mental power, in order to avoid succumbing to defeat.
We advise that when you begin your training, you are very attentive to what is happening, because without a doubt, you will arrive at a moment in which you will be able to say “I feel excellent”. That is where we must put the internal recorder of our brain to work, so that we can store that passage to see, what we observe, smell, dress, feel. In general, all the possible details of that experience. After what has been said, many will ask themselves, for what? the answer is “to generate a positive experience in our mind”.
According to various studies, the athlete (marathon runner in our case) who manages to bombard his/her mind with moments of success, or better yet, reap many victories of himself over passed tests, has an excellent chance of getting many more. Not only can he fulfill the objectives of a marathon, but he also “knows he can do it”. The important difference between “believing” that you can do something and “knowing” that you can do something, can make the difference between a first place in competition and finishing poorly; that is why we must concentrate on achieving victories little by little.
Applying the success system:
When we are in full training or testing, and we begin to feel tired, lacking in will and with a number of symptoms that lead us to abort the race, we should try to remember that we own our body…we can control it, command it, make it do things that we want…it’s all about the mind. Your mentality needs to be set up in such a way that you know that you’re in full control. You can achieve anything you can if only you believe. If your body says, “I’m tired”, your brain should say, “Just a little more”, but never forget to stay within your limit. Whatever you set out to achieve must be realistic based on your level of training and physical condition.
If you have had an experience in the past where your body responded perfectly to what you told it to do, try to visualize that glorious moment. Revive that sensational feeling of triumph and push your body to bow to your will once again.
When we are reliving our best time, our victories, our ability to compete, we will notice how little by little, the body begins to respond and many of those signs of fatigue that we had disappear until we are relieved and with possibilities of intensifying the pace.
KNOW YOUR LIMIT
Running a marathon is something else. The story of the heroic soldier Phipippides who traveled the distance between Marathon and Athens to announce the victory of the Greeks against the Persians at the battle of Marathon, dying shortly afterwards, confers an epic character and meaning for some beyond the athletic challenge . This extra motivation that accompanies marathon runners can sometimes play against them. We must not forget that, fundamentally, the marathon is a physical challenge for which we must be adequately prepared so that we do not put our health at risk.
An inadequate physical condition, bad health habits and ignorance of how to prepare a marathon can lead to injuries that will sometimes take us away from training for several months. They can even distance us permanently if we do not listen to the alarms of our organism, especially during the race itself. Although very rare, there may be serious medical complications, such as heat stroke, severe dehydration, hyponatremia and even serious heart and kidney problems in predisposed people.
Well known is that sport and health go hand in hand, and are like a well-matched marriage. The importance of knowing our body, our limitations and our needs is a vital part of achieving our set out marathon goals. Knowing our body is important to protect it in the most appropriate way.
The programming of physical activity should always be included in a more extensive health project that covers all the needs of our body and that makes it possible to achieve the goals we set for ourselves when we start doing sports. As they say in Go Fit, the idea is to achieve a fuller life.
TAKE CARE OF THE DETAILS
As we go through the years, the importance of taking care of the details becomes more evident, especially for the veteran runner. In these corridors, maintaining the same physical condition or performing at the same level as previous years requires more and more effort and dedication . In addition to the general planning, it is necessary to take care of aspects such as training, nutrition, hydration, the importance of rest , footwear, selection of the terrain, warming up, stretches and the most appropriate clothing materials.
TRAIN HARD, REST HARD
The night rest and the rest between intense loads of training are fundamental. In sports in the background, as the season progresses, the long distances, the intensity of the training, the competitions and the restrictive diets to lose those extra kilos make the organism suffer progressive wear that can affect performance negatively.
In general terms, carbohydrates in the form of pasta, rice and cereals are often the energy base to support and recover from training, but we must not forget the vegetable, fruit or meat and fish, and even some supplement polyvitaminic, as the basis of a balanced diet. The same happens at the muscular level and at other levels: the absence of rest days, or at least more relaxed shooting, leads to chronic fatigue , overtraining, poor assimilation of workloads and, as a result, to the decline of performance and increased risk of injury.
USE THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT
One of the main attractions of the race is its simplicity, it hardly requires accessory material: some shoes, comfortable clothes and willpower. The choice of the shoe is one of the most important elements to avoid injuries due to overload, and in this section it is worth making an economic investment.
Seek advice in specialized stores and choose a model that suits your objectives and the type of terrain where you train or run regularly. In general, the greater the cushioning of the shoe, the smaller the impact of the stride and the lower the risk of suffering an injury due to overload. Remember to change the shoes periodically, sometimes up to every three months if we run four to six days a week, because with the use they lose that buffering capacity. Also watch how the shoe fits your foot type, so that it does not cause chafing; It is inadvisable to premiere sneakers in a marathon.
Regarding the clothes , also a specialized shop will know how to advise you when choosing. In general, a light clothing, adapted to the climate at all times and that does not produce chafing, will always be a good choice. Again, during training, it is time to conduct our experiments.
DO NOT GET INJURED
It seems obvious, nobody wants to feel injured and give up their sport or a career that you have been preparing for months. Avoiding injuries is much more in our hands than we might think, most runner injuries are injuries due to overload and usually appear not to take care of one or more of the aspects mentioned above.
Some of the most common injuries of the runner are:
- Syndrome of the iliotibial band or knee of the runner.
- Femoro-patellar syndrome.
- Stress fracture of the tibia, metatarsals, femoral neck.
- Plantar fasciitis.
- Achilles tendinopathy.
- Low back pain
- Chronic compartment syndrome (CCS)
If the lesion appears, its management will depend on the type of injury, the time of evolution and the intensity of the symptoms. If the pain has appeared recently and is moderate, try to retrospectively analyze the efforts or any recent changes in your training, type of terrain, footwear, etc., in order to correct it. It may be that without having modified any of these points the simple fact of accumulating workloads is too much for your body. In this case, slow down, intensify stretching, conditioning exercises and even change activity for a few days or weeks and then, progressively, try to reintroduce the race.
FUNDAMENTALS OF MARATHON TRAINING
- Base milage: This deals with the distance in kilometers that we usually cover in each of our weekly training sessions
In this way, the training of a runner who prepares a marathon should be focused on a base of about 32 kilometers per week. Or if our objective is focused on a 10-kilometer race , our base would be focused on running 10 kilometers in each training session three times a week.
- Long run: Technically it is defined as a type of long-term, extensive continuous training, between 60 and 140 minutes, in which a heart rate is maintained around 70% of our maximum heart rate, and which aims to improve the ability of resistance of the organism in tests lasting more than 2 hours .
The ideal thing would be to do it with another partner with the same level as us , because this would help us overcome kilometers in a much easier way, as time will pass without realizing it. With a partner, you are able to go chatting and commenting on personal “battles” of training and competitions.
But it does not always happen that we have a friend who likes to run and who does it at the same pace as us, so we can be accompanied by an mp3 with radio and music that makes it more enjoyable and fun. Other runners stay in a group to make a long run, but not all have the same level. For this, a base route and certain extensions are established for those who have a higher rhythm, so that they can do what corresponds to each one.
You will have to follow a correct planning and progression, without going through time and number, something that is sometimes not easy because we let ourselves be carried away by our own sensations and by certain urban legends that roam around .
In addition, we will have to worry about eating abundantly and in a balanced way. All this you could jump in other less important work of the preparation of the marathon, but in long runs we must be very scrupulous in its correct implementation because we do not want to be a hindrance, but the basic pillar of our preparation.
Speed training
What you should not do is try to follow a rhythm that is not ours . This would not be in a certain way a problem for the one who is going at a slower pace than it should be, but it would be very counterproductive for the one who is going at a higher rate than hers
The preparation for a marathon or a half marathon requires resistance training at an accelerated pace because, thanks to them, you improve your resistance and help your body to store and burn energy more effectively.
Not all training should be based on resistance, but you should also perform fast training (shooting at a rate higher than your comfort zone), progressions in the race (until a fairly fast pace) and even specific speed training (intervals , short and long series, etc.).
Speed training must be done above the aerobic threshold and must be a challenge with which you can demand a lot, the most advisable thing is to reach an accelerated pace but not to deteriorate a correct posture when running.
- Rest and Recovery: The marathon is a very traumatic test that requires many resources from our body. The process of recovery after a marathon is the most important part in the totality of training, as it has a decisive influence on the progression of subsequent results. Rest is not a lost period, it is also training. If done well, the advantages will be numerous.
Most coaches and elite runners suggest a week off after a marathon, with very few jogs. After a week of rest, training should be very light for two weeks after the race. Your long-term progression will really benefit you as you allow your body to recover and start rested for the next training segment.