Hi, Coach Alexa here.
Marathon Nerves and Training Worries
So, in some of the Facebook groups that I’m a part of, particularly for charity fundraising runners, there is a lot of hecticness and a little bit of worry, anxiety creeping in about upcoming spring road marathons.
People are kind of winding each other up a little bit with their nerves.
And a lot of people saying, “Oh, my training hasn’t gone perfectly. It’s not gone according to plan.”
Why No Training Plan Is Ever Perfect
And I just wanted to say that it is incredibly rare for a training build, particularly for something like a marathon, where you’ve been having a build-up of maybe four, five, six months, whatever it’s been, to go completely according to plan.
There have been a load of bugs around this winter. COVID, nasty flu, really nasty colds that linger with coughs, chest infections, et cetera, stomach bugs, all sorts, and also life, right?
Life is never plain sailing. No one week is ever the same. Stuff happens.
Adapting Your Training
So, it’s one of the reasons why I think one-to-one coaching can be really, really useful because we can just adapt and go with the flow with it all.
Whereas your off-the-shelf sort of four, five, six-month training plan, you might look at it and go, “Well, I’ve not completed that training plan.”
Of course, you haven’t. I don’t think pretty much nobody will perfectly execute a whole marathon build-up training plan if it’s planned out in advance.
It’s one of the reasons I don’t particularly like them because stuff happens, and things need to change and adapt.
And also you might respond better to the training, and therefore your training plan needs to adapt in order to suit where you are fitness-wise.
Accepting Where You Are
But I guess the point of what I’m saying is we are where we are now.
Nobody will have had a perfect build.
Loads of people will have had bugs and colds and life stuff happening.
And all we can really do now is make the most of whatever time we’ve got between now and race day.
Better to Be Recovered Than Overtrained
It is, I think, I’m a firm believer, in fact, better to turn up at the start of a race ever so slightly underprepared, but feeling fully recovered from any illnesses that you’ve had, fully recovered from your training, full of energy, and feeling 100% well, basically, than it is to be slightly overcooked or niggling or still with a tickly cough or whatever it might be.
Focus on Recovery
So, I might put in the last video that you’ll see in the app last week about things we can do to maximise our recovery, which is worth thinking about.
Avoid Comparison
But don’t be tempted to be comparing yourself to other people at this stage.
I know it’s so, so tempting, particularly online.
Play your own game, do the right things for your body, and be aware of the fact that nobody will have had 100% perfect marathon build-up.
That’s just… I have never seen it happen.
Social Media Is Not the Full Picture
And also, there’ll be a lot of people talking, and what you see on social media isn’t necessarily the truth of what’s been going on.
Lots of people in the same boat with illnesses and stuff that’s happened, niggles, bits and pieces.
Final Thoughts
So all you can do now is do the best you can to support yourself and your body between now and race day.
Happy running.
