Spring Marathons: What Did We Learn?

The Leeds Marathon last weekend brings to a close the spring marathon season for our athletes.

We had seven of our coached athletes running marathons over the past six weeks. Six out of the seven had performances that had them beaming, delighted with their performances.

Our athletes were racing:

• Manchester
• London
• Boston
• Belfast
• Leeds

What did we learn along the way?

Make It To The Start Line Without Injury

One of our athletes was prone to small injuries and niggles, particularly when doing speed work or pushing the volume too much. We kept the long run ‘moderate’, with the longest run peaking at 2 hours and 20 minutes (25k). We included some longer cycling sessions to help develop that endurance. We figured it was better to be slightly under-prepared on run volume but on the start line, than at home sick or injured. Race day resulted in a huge personal best time.

Run-Walk

Run-Walk is a great way to build some endurance, particularly for the injury-prone runner. Again, to reduce the chance of injury yet progress the long runs, we used a run-walk strategy in training (14 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking). On race day, the runner felt strong, running all of the way and smashing his marathon PB (3.47).

The Imperfect Plan

The plan doesn’t have to be perfect. One of our runners was preparing for London Marathon, with all of the training, the peaking and the taper geared towards this race on this date. A week before the race she found out that she didn’t actually confirm her good for age place, so was not on the start list. Argh!! A quick entry to another marathon on another date, and she still produced a lifetime best performance (3.36)!

Life Gets In The Way

Life getting in the way of the training programme doesn’t mean that the race is ruined. Into the final eight weeks of training, and one athlete had to go abroad for three weeks (no training) due to work. Despite this, she still manages to produce a brilliant marathon performance (3.29).

Bigger Things

Although this race is really, really important to you, there are bigger and more important things in life that sit outside of your control. Perspective. Goals may need to shift. Change your perspective and you can still have a great run, a really satisfying performance, albeit not the one you dreamt about initially!

Mindset

Mindset is everything! Whether it is pushing hard for those last few painful miles to dip under 3.30, or realise your race is going better than expected and push for a sub-3.45 rather than ‘settle’ for a sub-4, or whether it is staying positive when you forgot to enter your dream race and have to run a different marathon. A positive mindset always wins.

The Great Mystery

And one more. How is it one of our athletes can run a hilly marathon on Sunday, smashing his previous best time, then come to Swim Squad on Monday and have less cramping episodes than he does on a ‘normal’ Monday swim?!