Marathon Top Tips

With the London Marathon this coming weekend, I thought it would be a good time to share my top 10 tips to help get you through the rest of the week and prepare you for the big day!

1. Mental preparation – Try and minimise work, relationship and travel stress for the rest of the week so you can relax and stay focused on the race. It’s good to reflect on your training and how far you have come from that first training run to now. Thinking about how much stronger, faster and fitter you have become can really help boost your confidence. It’s completely normal to feel nervous at this stage, especially if it’s your first big race, but try and turn this into excitement. It is also a good idea to have a think about the race itself and what strategies you can employ if things don’t go the way you expect. For example, what will you do if you set off too fast? Too slow? If the weather is hotter than expected? What time would you be happy with? Is this realistic? What happens if you develop a pain? How will you try and manage this? Having a plan of action in your head for each eventuality can really help you stay calm and keep things under control during the race itself.
2. Stay hydrated – from now until Sunday make sure you have a bottle of water to hand at all times and keep sipping on it to ensure you turn up to the start line in a hydrated state. Check the colour of your urine if you’re not sure, it should be a pale straw colour. In the last day or two before the race you may choose to add electrolytes to your water, or drink a Lucozade to help make sure you have the right balance of electrolytes in your system. As the weather is heating up, you may want to have a think about how you might alter your nutrition and hydration strategy on the day to account for this. Remember during the race to drink to thirst only as over-hydration is just as dangerous if not worse than being under-hydrated.
3. Stick to what you know – now is not the time to start changing what you have tried and tested over the last 3-4 months. From a nutrition perspective – stick to what you know won’t upset you’re stomach when carb-loading, especially in the day or two before the race. On your long runs you should have eaten breakfast beforehand so try and stick to what you are used to having pre-run on the day. During the race itself try not to take on any new nutrition, gels, or sports drinks that you haven’t previously practiced with no matter how tempting this may be. If you are using different gels or drinks to what is offered by the sponsors on the day I would encourage you to carry your own with you. In terms of clothing/trainers, wear what you have practiced your long runs in on the day so that there are no surprise areas of chafing that crop up in the race that causes you unnecessary pain or discomfort.
4. Deal with any problem areas – if you’re aware there’s any specific areas of tightness or discomfort, now would be a good time to have a sports-massage from a trained professional. Don’t do this unless you have a good 48 hours to recover before the race as sports massages can sometimes inflame the tissue afterwards and temporarily increase pain or discomfort. Equally you could stretch or roll any problem areas frequently over the next few days.  However, always remember to do this after a run and not directly before.
5. Plan where you’ll see your friends and family – running a marathon is not easy and from experience I find it really gives a good boost and makes it all the more easier to see your friends or family cheering you on. The official spectator guide can give tips on the best places to spectate from, just be mindful that lots of other spectators may have the same idea! The London marathon app/website is known for not being that accurate or crashing on the day due to the volumes of people trying to use it. Therefore if you are an iPhone user like me I would recommend an app called ‘Find my Friends’. In my experience this works really well as if you are running with your headphones in, you can answer the phone to friends and family who update you on where they are when they spot you getting close on the app – for example, “on the right hand side, next to a specific landmark or banner, next ½ mile”.  I find this a really useful strategy as not only do you manage to see your spectators but you can also be distracted by scanning the crowd in the run up to seeing them
6. Night before preparation – pack your bag with all the bits you need before and after the race, include a snack for the start line as you might eat your breakfast earlier than normal and feel hungry. Plan out your timings for the race morning including your route to the start line. It’s advisable to get to the start line an hour before to make sure you’ve had time to put your bag in, go for that last nervous wee and find your starting pen. Make sure you work out the best time to wake up in order to have your breakfast, get yourself ready and get yourself there. Remember that thousands of other people will be using the buses, trains and tubes so you may need to give yourself extra time. Most importantly relax, go to bed earlier than usual and try to get a restful night’s sleep.
7. Vaseline any areas likely to chafe – forget about all the fancy stickers and lubrication sticks you can buy, in my experience Vaseline works the best. I am prone to blisters so tend to Vaseline my feet which sounds odd but works a treat. Having tried your running kit out on your longest run you should have identified any areas likely to chafe (nipples/armpits etc.) so cover them in Vaseline as blisters and pain from chafing is definitely something you can do without on the day.
8. Don’t set off too fast – it’s tempting with the rush of adrenaline to set off running too fast on race day. It’s a good idea to know what your average pace/mile is from having done your longer runs and try to consciously run at this pace or slightly slower for the first few miles until you get into your stride. You might be able to pick up a pace-band at the expo to assist with this. Remember that if you start off too slow you can always speed up. But start off too fast and you risk crashing and burning, hitting that wall at 18-20 miles!
9. Concentrate – It can be easy to get swept up in the adrenaline and excitement of the race and not concentrate on what you are doing. Look at where you are running, you’ll notice there is a faint blue line down the centre of the road, this is the shortest route which the elite runners use. It is also the flattest part of the road so where possible aim for this. It won’t do you any favours to run 26.2 miles on a camber! Also the course merges with the other starts around 3 miles so you’ll notice it gets busier all of a sudden. The course can be wide and all of a sudden go very narrow so try to look out for this to avoid tripping over other runners. You may also come across bollards in the middle

   

   of the road that seem to come from nowhere when there’s a solid crowd of runners in front of you. Be careful at water stations not to trip over any loose bottles or dart across the course in front of other runners. Also look out for the other runners that may do this as they can also present themselves to be a hazard.

10. Enjoy it – in my opinion London Marathon is the best and most well supported marathon in the world. It’s a real experience, the crowds are amazing and you’ll probably put it up there with one of the best (and worst if you’re new to marathon-running) days of your life. Make sure you enjoy it, smile at the crowd, give lots of high-fives, enjoy having thousands of strangers cheer you on and shout your name.