Here at Outside, we at all times have marathons on our minds, and we’ve given quite a lot of nice suggestions and suggestions on easy methods to conquer the gap. But now, we’ve put collectively a cheat sheet full of our greatest recommendation that can assist you crush your subsequent marathon, whether or not meaning crossing the end line for the primary time or clocking a PR.
1. Create a Game Plan
“This may sound obvious, but I can say from recent personal experience that if you don’t have a plan of attack, it’s easy to get sidelined by doubt and start waffling. My plan makes me feel accountable—it’s right there in black and white.”
2. Your Life Will Revolve Around Running
Which means the folks in your life have to be on board. “It’s really important to get your training in while making the fewest ripples in your household…You have to balance running with the other parts of your life. Get your kids and partner on board with a plan that works for you—and them.”
3. F*** the Haters
“I literally didn’t know how long a marathon was until I looked it up. Then I researched, on the internet, what a good marathon time was. There are all these running community chat rooms, and there was this consensus where anything under four hours is respectable, but there’s a whole lot of hate out there for people who run slower marathons, slower being anything over four hours. Then I realized that’s ridiculous. This challenge is so engaging that it’s enough if someone does it—regardless of what the time is. I felt like the world accepted that, although there is still this judgment in the community of pace-ists.”
4. Choose Your Race Wisely
If you’re a first-timer trying to simply hit the end line, or in case your objective is to set a blistering PR, the course issues. “There’s no easy way to cover 26.2 miles on foot, but not all marathons are equally grueling. For first-timers, opting for a tame race is generally a smart move. Keen as you might be to jump into the deep end, starting your marathon career on a less difficult course is a good way to build confidence without wrecking your body. (There’s plenty of time to sign up for orgies of self-destruction like the Pikes Peak Marathon later on.)”
5. Prioritize the Long Runs
And this 1 comes from Kathryn Switzer, 70-year-old working legend and the primary lady to formally run the Boston Marathon: “Get the miles in. The difference between running a 10K and marathon is the difference between writing an article and a book. You’ve gotta get them miles in, but I wouldn’t worry for your first one about speed if your goal is really just to finish.”
6. Get Buzzed
“At crucial points in the race, caffeine can almost trick your body into feeling better than it should…Get caffeine, carbohydrates, and sugars via caffeinated gels during the race to help maintain energy. And, of course, drinking water or a sports drink and hitting all the hydration stations is also necessary.”
7. Skip the Touristing Until After Race Day
Although it’s particularly laborious for a race that you just journey for, it’s essential that you just keep off your toes the day and night time earlier than a race. “Race organizers don’t make that easy by scheduling interesting expos and panel discussions the day before where you are on your feet, walking around, expending energy. Discipline yourself to keep that to a minimum, making a conscious effort to sit and rest, with your feet up as much as possible. Don’t squander the good work you’ve done during your taper in the last day or two.”
8. Relish Rest
“There are 3 coaching rules: specificity, overload, and relaxation. You should use all of them. In different phrases, if you wish to see outcomes, you want to…embrace sufficient quantities of relaxation and restoration to capitalize on enhancements. As a common guideline, you shouldn’t stack greater than 2 days of intense train collectively or work the identical muscle group closely 2 days in a row. If you don’t use the opposite days for restoration, your work would possibly backfire and also you received’t see the specified enhancements.”
9. Nutrition Is Half the Battle
Just since you’re working a bigger variety of miles doesn’t imply you may deal with your consuming habits with reckless abandon. “Ask an elite athlete how diet elements into her efficiency, and she or he’ll doubtless inform you that it’s simply as necessary as her coaching plan. In many circumstances, she might even name it the most necessary issue.”
10. This Is Not a Weight-Loss Regimen
Your physique craves high-quality energy while you’re asking it to churn by way of 40- or 50-mile weeks, and your efficiency will definitely endure when you don’t feed your physique sufficient gas. “When you start your training program, shift your focus to fueling your body to meet the increased performance demands, not on counting calories. If you use more energy, you have to take in more energy. If you perform poorly in workouts or are lethargic between workouts, you might not be taking in enough calories. You can run the numbers and see a calorie deficit, but when you exercise a lot and don’t get enough calories, metabolism slows to a crawl. You get the opposite of what you’re looking for.”
11. Show Your Feet Some Love
Strong toes don’t simply make you quicker. They additionally assist stave off accidents. Weak toes don’t. “A 2014 research discovered that by rising foot power, athletes additionally improved their one-legged lengthy soar, vertical soar, and 50-yard sprint occasions. Last yr, within the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers proposed an entire new paradigm: the foot-core system, which stresses intrinsic muscular tissues just like the abductor halluces and the flexor digitorum brevis, which have been largely ignored by clinicians.”
12. Learn to Fly
Work some pace exercises into your coaching, particularly when you’re trying to PR. A real favourite is the negative-split long term. “You want to go 18 to 22 miles total, with the first half roughly one minute per mile slower than marathon race pace. Run the second half at your goal marathon pace.”
13. Focus on Feel
Although this nugget comes from racing nice Joan Benoit Samuelson, we will all be taught slightly one thing from her ode to working by really feel quite than clocking a inflexible web page it doesn’t matter what. “I’m certainly not running at the level that I once was, nor am I training at that level. I do what I can reasonably do. I don’t have any rhyme or reason to my training except to run the way I feel on that particular day. If I feel good, I run hard; if I don’t, I run easy. I just try to keep things simple. [Same goes] in a race. If I feel like I can go out hard, I’ll go out hard.”
14. Find Your Race-Day Ally
That one who will hearken to your “fussing about optimizing sleep, hydration, and fueling habits,” rise up early and eat breakfast with you earlier than the race, deliver all essentially the most embarrassing indicators to cheer, plan a post-race brunch and bash, and “brag about you on social media.”
15. Get Swole
“When I first heard that training to squat more than my body weight would help me improve as an endurance athlete, I wasn’t sure I could pick up a 30-pound dumbbell. In my mind, weight lifting was a thing for protein-guzzling meatheads who use words like swole. I’m a five-two, 108-pound runner. Hill repeats are the closest I’ve come to strength training. And like most endurance athletes—and most women—I was terrified of two things: getting bulky and getting hurt…Training to increase my squat strength broke me down to a place where I didn’t have a choice [but to take time off]. Then it built me up stronger.”
16. Train Your Gut Like You Do Your Legs
“While GI distress is common—especially in runners—it’s also highly individual, both in how it presents and in how severely you suffer…[But] you don’t have to be at the mercy of your intestines. You can, at least to some degree, train your gut like you train your glutes and your lungs. Getting it right, however, takes time, work, and possibly some unpleasant experimentation.”
17. Pound Fluids and Carbs Earlier Than You Want To
“Attempting to play catch-up later in the race is a dangerous and mostly doomed proposition. For one, you process sugar and food poorly near the end of a race. Also, as you tire, you forget to fuel properly later in the race. Don’t get to the point of being hungry or thirsty. Load on the front end.”
18. Buy and Replace Two Pairs of Shoes
“Even if you have a pair that you absolutely love, the muscles in your feet get used to cushioning in certain places, and when you use a different shoe, you help balance out any weaknesses you might have in a certain place. Over the long haul, training in different shoes may even reduce risk of injury since you won’t always be placing the same level of stress on the same parts of your foot…[Also,] shoes are not immortal. The typical lifespan of a shoe is between 300 and 600 miles, but they’ll start to feel a little different after about 200 miles.” Replace them.
19. Running Is a Whole-Body Sport
Treat it as such to stop damage and shield your self towards overuse breakdowns. “The posterior chain—mainly your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back—has gained a reputation as the oft-neglected muscle group that’s responsible for many problems in the lower half of the body, such as IT band, Achilles, and knee or hip issues. While that’s true, putting in extra work to strengthen only your backside neglects other muscles groups like the quads, creating more imbalances. Strengthening your entire body is important for both treating and preventing injury.”
20. Don’t Cram
“A big part of racing is showing up rested and ready. That begins about a week out with the taper. You want to keep running, including your fast surges, but do fewer miles every day. Most important, don’t try to test yourself or put in an extra-hard or extra-long workout to get ready—it takes about eight days for training to affect the body, so you’ll just tire yourself out.”
21. Book a Massage
Schedule 1 for 24 hours inside working to assist flush muscular tissues and restore the harm you’ve performed. Plus, it feels fairly rattling good.
22. Shake It Out
“The standout stat here is that, among marathon runners, 70 percent of sub-3:00 finishers go for an easy run the day before the race. This supports the value of the shakeout run—that is, an easy jog the day before your event. The idea is that you ‘shake out’ prerace nerves and keep your muscles loose. The numbers indicate that this practice is more common among faster runners—perhaps because slower counterparts are less experienced and more worried about detracting from their race-day performance. As the data reveals, they shouldn’t be: The whole point of a shakeout is that it should be short and very easy. Done right, it won’t be detrimental, and it might actually make you run better.”
23. Pack Your Bag Ahead of Time
Don’t depart something to likelihood on the morning of the race as you rush out the door in daybreak’s darkness. “This kit is where function meets superstition—both equally important for endurance athletes—and where you stash everything you’ll need before the start and after the finish.”
24. Skip the Spaghetti
Or at the very least the double serving on the night time earlier than the race. “Your body can’t process and store energy from additional food. Most of these calories will just be eliminated, and those that aren’t will just expand your waistline, not your energy stores. Instead, eat a regular-size meal rich in complex carbs, protein, and healthy fats, such as pasta with garlic sauce or a salmon fillet.”
25. Have Your Head on a Swivel
Sure, it’s going to allow you to dodge close by runners and water cups gone wild, however it’s going to additionally pressure you to soak up what it’s that you just’re doing while you race. “It’s the fact that you’re running through one of the most spectacular urban landscapes on earth. I was counting as I was running up Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn: That’s a seven-lane street that’s entirely empty except for runners. When you’re out there on a car-free street, it’s like nothing else. It’s a special experience. And crossing the bridges, too. When you’re out in the middle, you look at the scenery, and it really takes your breath away.”
26. Enjoy Each Race Like It’s Your Last
“Boston was my only real race goal from last year to this year. When you start to have only one big goal in a year, it starts to feel like a long time to stretch, and you realize you don’t have that many years left to do it.”
