Completing a marathon is tough! And getting to the start line can sometimes getting to the start line can be the hardest thing. Preventing injuries when training for a marathon is the key. Particularly with events such as Colchester half marathon and London marathon being held in the beginning of spring – training has to happen in the cold, wet months of the year where motivation is low and the short days, and dark mornings and evenings make even the most motivated runner consider their life choices.

But the ‘runners high’ that is experienced on completion can be like no other, and there is a reason why some people chose to put themselves through this ordeal year after year.

In clinic around this time (February and March) we start to see the diary fill with people training for these events who are starting to develop little, or actually quite significant pains, and need support to get to the start line. In this blog, I will offer my advice on how to reduce your risk of picking up an injury in your training.

Why do runners get injured training for a marathon?

Put simply – it’s load.

Going out and pounding the pavement puts stress on your body, and the nature of training for a long distance event is that you need to do it a lot. Not only do you need to do a lot, but you need progressively do more each week in order to get yourself to the point of being able to complete the distance.

This load goes through your bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments and all areas of the body. So your body needs to have the ability to deal with the stress of this, and then recover from it enough to then complete your next run. So essentially, getting the balance between the amount of running that your are doing, and the amount you are recovering is the key. This is where your focus needs to be – simple.

How do I ensure that my body can deal with the amount of running?

Resistance training is well documented as a great way to build your bodies ability to deal with the stress of running, but this is itself has a cost to your body. So resistance training is very important in prepping your body for training, but as your mileage increases, my advice is that you decrease the intensity of the resistance training sessions you do. Strength and resilience should be built before and at the start of when you start you structured marathon plan, and should get lighter in the ‘business end’ of training. Ask anyone who has done a massive leg day and then tried to run 16 miles the next day!

So when you get you February (where we are at the time of writing), and mileage is really ramping up, you probably want to start to think of other ways to manage the stress on your body, and my advice on this is pretty simple too.

1. Don’t increase your weekly mileage/volume by more than 20% a week – this allows for progression without massively jumping up and causing an unexpected stress on the body.
2. Include a ‘deload’ week every 3-4 weeks where you decrease the volume of training by about 20% for the week – this allows your body to recover better, and you can then push your training more.

How do I recover best while marathon training?

Well, again, this is relatively straight forward – Sleep well, eat well and drink well.

Sleep first. Try to get at least 8 hours a night in order for your body to recover well. Now, what’s important to consider is that what’s important is the QUALITY of your sleep. You don’t need 8 hours of quality sleep to recover, but when you sleep for 8 hours you are more likely to get the required amount of deep sleep that is required for this to happen. You can help yourself to optimise your sleep and get more deep sleep by spending less time on a screen in the hour before bed, making sure that your room is as dark as possible (or wear an eye mask) and keeping the room cool. There are lots of other tactics, but these are simple things to implement that seem to give good ‘bang for your buck’.

Then eating. When training for a marathon, you should not be trying to diet and lose weight. It’s likely with the increase in energy you are using, this will happen anyway, but you need to fuel recovery, and fuel the runs before you do them. I am not a nutritionist, so if you need specific advice, I recommend talking to a nutritionist like Tom who is based in Colchester. SO my advice is, make sure you are eating enough protein AND carbohydrate. Carbs will fuels those long runs and protein will allow you to recover, but the 2 need to work together. Be prepared to increase your calorific intake when training, its a lot of miles, that requires a lot of fuel. My final point on this, is try to continuously fuel yourself rather than letting yourself get hungry and then trying to eat a lot. That’s like letting the fire burn down and then throwing a load of logs on, it doesn’t work as well as steadily adding more logs.

And finally hydration. Try to consume 2-3 litres of water a day, and always take water with you to keep hydrated when running. Water is so important for processes to take place effectively in the body, so make sure you stay hydrated at all times. This can mean a few extra trips to the toilet a day while your bladder gets used to it, but this will improve with time. I often recommend taking a hydration tablet with your water once a day to ensure you get the electrolytes in to allow the water to get into your body, they also taste really good so it’s a nice break from water at times.

What about massage guns and foam rolling?

These things (and many others) have their use in aiding recovering. However, the 3 aspects mentioned above are your foundations. Without sleep, nutrition and hydration, your are unlikely to feel much benefit from things like foam rolling and massage. So stick to the basics, it’s not sexy, it doesn’t look exciting on instagram, but it works. Once you are doing these things consistently you may find benefit from other recovery methods.

In Summary

1. Do your hard gym work early or before starting your marathon plan
2. Gradually decrease your gym intensity as your running increases
3. Increase volume of running by no more than 20% a week
4. Have a deload week every 3-4 weeks where you decrease training volume by 20%
5. Sleep 8 hours a night
6. Eat enough calories to fuel training – particularly carbs and protein
7. Drink 3-4 litres of water a day