by So here we are in March and of course for so many runners, it now means the end of the business of their training for the marathons of Brighton, Manchester or London.
Needless to say, other marathons too, including the lucky ones who have entered the oldest marathon in the world in Boston, in the United States.
In addition to being very busy in Sportlink by selling new shoes for the big days of runners, we are also bombed by people asking for advice on everything that goes with a marathon, especially these first timers.
We gave a conference last Wednesday to the Trail & Vines group of Abby Coates which was all the more because it was a mixture of novices and those who were already there when it comes to 26.2 miles.
In addition to the advice on nutrition, one of the most common things that we were asked is “What do you think that the furthest that I should run during training for a marathon?” And not just the first timers.
My answer will always be – what suits you at the time.
In other words, do not spend time worrying about what others have done and simply focus on building your operation at a level that will allow your body to recover and adapt to the increases in mileage to be at your best of the day.
Needless to say, if you want to be your best, there must be a level of training set up, but especially for the first timers, it would be crazy to suddenly jump at 20 miler if, with a few weeks, the longest race undertaken so far is only a half-marathon. I am not saying that such a big leap in the mileage cannot be made, but it would be the effects thereafter which could then be harmful through the need for recovery of the body and even a risk of injury.
I regularly tell people that before my first marathon, I did not go beyond 16 miles. In some ways, this is not the truth, because when I tried to make my first return to the race in the race in 1980, I heard about what was known as the popular marathon at Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham.
At that time, my race included around three points a week about three to four miles and playing football.
In a few weeks after the entrance to the popular marathon of 1981, I very quickly increased the mileage from about 10 to 12 miles per week to around 70 to 80, then when it came out on Sunday, I took a bad turn and I got lost, which ended up with me while traveling 26 unforeseen miles.
In addition to being very dehydrated, I was quite tired at the end. Then the next day, when I get out of bed, I felt pain in my right tibia.
This pain has gradually worsened as the week continued to the point where it became excruciating while trying to run. Other surveys led to two stress fractures in my tibia and it was the end of my attempt planned not only to run a marathon, but to resume the race.
It was of course until he healed for which I then made a second attempt after entering the 1982 Wolverhampton marathon where my longest training race turned out to be a little more than 16 miles before the race itself.
I was super careful this time on how I built my training while preferring to be wrong on the side of prudence and as I said to the T&V group, I sailed in the marathon up to 22 miles in 2 hours 37 minutes. Not bad, I thought about a first attempt and a definitive reason to start competitive march.
Yes, I made some additional mistakes over the next two years and the truth is that sometimes you have to learn the hard.
However, in three years, I had run a marathon less than 2:20 (2:19:07) and after four years, the fastest of all time at 2:17:35 while winning a vest in England along the way. Then in 1987, I returned to Wolverhampton where it all started and won the race that was followed with a GIV.
In many ways, I envy these people who are only a few weeks old from their marathon trip, but as said at the start of this column, follow your own trip because you still have time to progress to provide you in a sensitive manner.
Earlier this week, I lost my last four -legged race partner after Luna, My Husky, died. These are now six very special dogs that we have lost in recent years. Luna was really up to her name and what a great runner she was at her peak. She, as well as all my previous dogs, will live in my heart for the rest of my racing days and my life.
This week’s chronicle is very dedicated to Luna and all my other puppies that have crossed the bridge …
