Hi, Team We Run. Coach Alexa here, online running coach with the Virtual Running Club team.
I am having lots of conversations with people around my hay fever, so apologies for the bunged up nose and puffy eyes today, about their spring marathons, peaking their training and starting to come into the taper.
So depending on which marathon, where you are with your training, how that has been going, you have either got a little bit more to do in terms of endurance build or are already thinking about tapering back. Whichever stage you are in, both of those stages, it is worth thinking about three really important things that are really useful to support that process.
Nutrition – Fuel Your Training and Recovery
First of all is the food that you are eating, just generally throughout the week.
We can really make some useful gains by thinking more about the food that we are eating. So plenty of different types of food, fruits, vegetables, pulses, legumes, loads of different types of food that make sure that you get all of the vitamins and minerals that your body needs to recover and adapt.
So things like eating your way around the rainbow, making sure you have got lots of different colours of food throughout each week, because those colours are created by different chemicals, which provide different vitamins and minerals.
Maybe giving yourself a challenge of eating your way through the alphabet in fruit and veg throughout the next month.
All these little things can help get vitamins, minerals, antioxidants into our body, which are really going to help.
Protein Intake – Support Recovery and Adaptation
Thinking about the quality of our protein in each day, maybe even each meal, a bit of quality protein as you are going throughout the day.
Again, the body is going to use all of that really easily, really useful for recovery, making sure we make the most out of the training, but also get the best recovery and adaptation in the taper.
Sleep and Recovery – Maximise Your Training Gains
So that is the ingredients. Our body then needs a bit of time and space to take those ingredients and do magic stuff with them.
So top of the list is sleep.
Covered this in previous videos, so search back through the app if you want to find out more about those. But early nights, good quality sleep, good bedtime routine, anything you can do to improve sleep quality at this point is always going to help.
Rest and Mental Calm – Prepare for Race Day
And also, physically inactive, mentally calm rest time.
So now is not the time when you are peaking your training and during the taper to have a really hectic social schedule, if you can help it.
I know it is easier said than done, but try not to have too much craziness planned, work and life-wise. If you can have a little bit of a calm run into the race, particularly in the taper, that can be really beneficial for race day as well.
It allows our body to get in a state where it also is being able to do some of that physical recovery in the background.
So that does not necessarily involve watching thrillers and horror films, or it definitely does not involve scrolling on our phone and constantly refreshing social media feeds. But physically inactive, mentally calm rest time can be super useful.
Final Thoughts
So hope that is useful. If you are peaking for a spring race of any kind, it does not have to be a marathon, post down in the comments below. Let us know what you are up to, and we can wish you luck. Happy running.
