Ben’s Marathon Training Experience
After a few months of training and build up, I will be running the Noosa Marathon at the end of May! It will be my first time running at the marathon distance, and 42.2km still seems like a long way! As I am now heading into my 2 week taper, it is a good time to reflect on things that have worked well, as well as some mistakes I’ve made during the past 5 months building up towards this race.
Programming. Previously I have self-led all of my weekly runs, researching this myself to work out how quickly to increase distances and different types of runs to bring into the training. This time I opted to pay for a training programme from a third party app, and it was the best decision I could make. Not having to spend any time planning, and just being told what I was going to run each day made it far easier to drag myself out of bed on the days where motivation was low.
Slowing Down. Running my easy runs at a slow pace was a challenge to begin with, as it is hard to get over the feeling of being perceived as slow by other people, and getting accustomed to having energy left in the tank at the end of the run. Slow running really helped to build up my aerobic base, and also to manage energy levels and sweat loss during the peak of the sticky summer in Darwin.
Strength Training. As the kilometres increased, it became harder to get my butt into the gym to push some heavy things around with my legs. For a couple of weeks I slacked off, and straight away the niggles started creeping in. My hip started grumbling after a long run, my achilles tightening up during an interval session. This was enough of a slap on the wrist to get back to strengthening, and just as quick as these issues came on, they were gone again and I’ve been running with strong legs since. Always a good reminder!
Hydration. Starting the training block in the peak of the wet season here in Darwin was challenging, and it made for some very sweaty runs even when the sun wasn’t yet up. I had to make sure I was taking in fluids and electrolytes during and after runs, with some days drinking more than 6 litres of water! It was just as important to take in electrolytes and salt to replenish everything that I had lost through sweating heavily.
Fuelling. Going into the final few weeks of my training, I had to start experimenting with how I am going to fuel myself during the race itself. During my long runs I started to practice eating 60-90g of carbohydrates every hour during my long runs, and it always made a huge difference when I got this right. I have tried many flavours of different gels at this point, and decided that the less flavour the better, as it can be tough with some of the stronger tastes!