The Marathon season is around the corner. The London Marathon is literally a few weeks away and we have had a flurry of runners heading into the clinic with injuries. So what can you do to ensure you get across that finish line.
Plan for the race.
This might sound obvious, but you will be surprised how many people leave their marathon training to the last minute. There is nothing more likely to cause an injury than trying to cram your miles in at the last minute. Running creates large forces that run through your feet and up into your legs. The body has to adapt to these forces and that, unfortunately, takes time. If you are a complete novice, start your training by getting a 5k and then a 10k under your belt. This will give you a good base level of fitness and strength to start the longer runs.
If you are a complete novice, it would be best to allow 8-12 months to build up your running, This also allows you to try some races, which are hugely important in your race preparation. If you are already regularly running at the 5-10k distance level, you should still take 4-5 months to build up for a marathon.
How often should I change my running shoes?
This is a really tricky question and depends how much running you are doing. The state of your shoes will ultimately determine when they need to be changed. If the tread on the bottom of the shoe has all but disappeared and the shoe is changing colour on its sole, then this is a good indication it is time to change the shoe. Similarly, if you give the heel a squeeze between your fingers and it has become quite soft and squishy, this is another indication the shoe could do with changing.
If you have supportive shoes, for over or under pronation, it is particularly important to check your shoes regularly. This is because the support mechanisms in the running shoes get less effective over time, as a result, if you aren’t doing something to address the weakness with strength work, this can lead to pain and injury. If you have been in for one of our running analysis sessions, you will know that we would always prefer to give you a strengthening exercise, than rely on shoes to improve any pain that comes from over or under pronation. So if you do suffer with these issues, perhaps book in and we can take a look at how to resolve this.
What is very important, is that you don’t change shoes close to your marathon. If you have a tried and tested pair of shoes that feel fine, and you are running with no pain. Do not be tempted to change them just because they look a little the worse for wear. Finish the marathon, and then attempt to break in a new pair of shoes. We have seen countless runners in the clinic, panicking a month out from the marathon that they have knee, ankle or hip pains. When we delve into it, they have recently changed their shoes. We will often put them back into their old shoes (as long as they aren’t causing pain) and suggest they wait until the Marathon is complete.
What if I left my marathon training too late!
Firstly, don’t panic! Take a good look at yourself and work out where you are at. If you do lots of other aerobic exercise, maybe spinning, cycling or swimming you will have a good cardio base to cope with the marathon from a lung capacity perspective. The body will adapt quite quickly to increased load, so if necessary increase your cardio work outs. However, do this by increasing the duration of your cycling, swimming, cross trainer use, rather than your running.
As mentioned above, running requires the body to accept and deal with large forces and this can’t be fast tracked. So you could increase other cardio exercises to get you to the amount of time needed for the marathon 4-5hrs of continuous exercise. But if we actually look at the action of running, you will still need to build up the time on your feet slowly. Use one of the many marathon training apps out there and start with day one, even if the marathon is only a month or two away.
That way, you will at least get to the starting line. The marathon may be a bit painful to complete, and you may curse the lack of training a day or two later, but at least you will not get injured in advance. We are very adept at creating training programs, even if you have limited time. We use our sports science knowledge to get your body to the best it can, without you getting injured. So if this is you, give us a call and we will start you on the right approach.
What if I have now injured myself just before the marathon?
Firstly, ice whichever area is feeling injured. Often a couple of days of icing for 10 minutes every hour will calm down anything acute and get you back on your feet. If that isn’t working or you still have an issue, don’t delay. Book on in and we can take a look. Sometimes things can’t be fixed in time, but often, with the use of some strapping and taping, or an alteration to your marathon plan or foot strike, we can get people through the marathon and then sort the issue later.
We have a great article on using the cross trainer to help you continue your program, while you heal, so check it out here.
An acute injury can be fixed well enough to compete in a 2 week period, but only if this isn’t a bio-mechanical issue and if you treat yourself to gold standard treatment! The protocol below assumes an acute muscular injury, rather than any likelihood of fractures or bone damage.
- Ice the area for a maximum of 10 minutes per hour. No more! Certainly don’t put heat anywhere near it. After approx 2 days this should have lowered the swelling and the inflammation.
- Move the joint or muscle in question gently through its pain free range. Even if that is just a very small movement, try to use it, as it will help the scar tissue to realign correctly. Never go into pain when doing these movements. Pain means the scar tissue is being re-injured, which leads to longer recovery times.
- Once you have full range of movement, pain free, which is often after the first week. Then you need to strengthen the muscle. Grab some resistance bands, start will the lightest (often yellow) and work through the resistance levels. This works for most muscular injury’s though ankles can be different, so best to get an ankle checked out asap if the marathon is nearby.
- Even if you are as close as 2 weeks out, you can heal an acute injury enough to get through a marathon, it may need some support strapping to help it along, but it is possible to get through.
If this isn’t working for you, it is best to give us a call. We have seen people with stress fractures a few weeks out from their marathon due to over training, and unfortunately there isn’t much we can do to fix that in time.
Practice the race
Being fit and able to finish a marathon is only one of the hurdles to successful marathon attempts. Being used to the race environment is really important. As mentioned before, along your running journey book yourself onto several races, a 5k, 10k and half marathon are really good options. They build up in terms of the race distance and teach you about how to pace yourself when running in a race environment.
When the adrenaline and atmosphere of a race kicks in, many runners start to increase their tempo. They don’t even notice they are doing it. As a result fatigue kicks in and they struggle to get through the full distance. Those more experienced in running races will be able to set their own pace and therefore conserve their energy to finish the race. Just getting to know the system of arriving checking in etc at races, really helps to plan both your race day and your recovery. Also don’t underestimate the effect the crowd will have on your ability to get to the end, even when you are struggling.
So if you are attempting to run your first Marathon this year, or you you are a veteran runner, we hope the suggestions above are useful. Don’t forget to book in your that recovery Sports Massage afterwards and best of luck to you all.
