Monday of marathon week is a day to reflect on what has gone before and start preparing your mind and body for the good old fashioned ‘kicking‘ they are about to endure. There is no sugar coating the act of racing a marathon, it is a massive mental and physical test and any weakness will be found out and exploited, and we do this for fun ?

I’ve been booked in for a facebook video post tomorrow at The Running Centre ( http://therunningcentre.com.au/ ) where I will talk through my top 5 tips for the marathon week but might as well spill the beans here pre-podcast.

You cannot gain any fitness in marathon week. The ‘hay is in the barn’ and there really is no point trying to add more ! Me, personally, I’ll run an easy 10k Monday and then maybe one more Thursday and that’s it. There are other things to concentrate on this week, save the running for Sunday. Alternatively short, quick speed runs but watch your hammy and calf, you are so close,  this week is more about prevention of injuries not encouraging them when you are tired after your training block. (You have been training right?) Maybe treat yourself to a relaxing massage but I’d avoid a hard sports massage this close to a marathon. A proper sports massage is painful and has been known, if done incorrectly, to do more damage than good. This week is all about gently gently does it, soothing tired muscles no beating the hell out of them.

Start thinking about your nutrition and hydraytion plan and while you’re doing that be drinking water or electrolytes. This week you need to spend a lot of time in a toilet moving liquids through your system. If you’re reading this and not holding a drink bottle then you need to go and get one. For race day you need to make sure you have a nutrition plan which will involve digesting a carboshotz ( https://shotznutrition.com.au/ ) or Gu ( http://www.guenergy.com.au/  ) or something similar  every 45 minutes, more if you can stomach them.

I’m a big fan of carboloading and aim for 10g of carbohydrates for every kilogram of weight. So for a 70kg runner that’s 700g of carbohydrates a day for three days pre-marathon. Assuming the marathon is on a Sunday you’d start gorging of carbs from Thursday onwards. Please don’t go overboard by also gorging on sugar and fat; it is actually quite difficult to hit your carboloading target so some thought needs to go into your diet for those three days. Also carboloading only works if you are fully hydrated at all times, your urine should be clear and virtually drinkable (I’m assuming clear is virtually all water but have never actually tried drinking it, I leave that to Bear Grylls and my mate Ghosty) There is also a train of thought that you should deplete your glycogen stores pre-carboloading but this has shown not to be the case. With nutrition I am not expert (hard to believe I know?) so do your own research, what works for me may not work for other runners. Due to my Wife’s cooking I have an iron stomach and have never been adversely affected by any products while racing. If there’s a volunteer holding a packet of ‘X’ I’m taking it, c’mon it’s free why wouldn’t you ?

The marathon itself is the icing on the cake after all your months of training.  The last 42km of your training, the race itself, is where you can enjoy yourself. This is why we do what we do. Don’t be scared by the challenge, more excited about the journey and the final destination.  Of course there will be hard times along the way but always remember  with every step you are nearer your end goal, the race is the real thing not a training run, with every step forward there is one less step to go.

Finally the most important tip of all, running a marathon is more mental than physical on race day. Some time during the race you will question why you are running and the easy option will be to slow , this is our good friend fatigue and he is here purely to protect your body, sent by the mind who is not convinced you can finish without blowing a head gasket.  Every marathon I have ever raced I have wanted to stop , actually just about every race I have ever run I have wanted to stop, so far I never have. This is what Tim Noakes called the ‘Central Governor’   ( https://runnersconnect.net/central-governor-theory/ ) If you can master the mind, you can master the marathon’.  I just made that up but I’m probably not the first to say it ? Anyhow,  positive assurance/thinking is gold when you are running a marathon. See yourself finishing in the time you want and play that over and over again when you are in need of a pick-me up, think of all the things you have given up to be where you are and the sacrifices you and your family , and friends, have made to get you to this point in time. Use these thoughts to propel you to the finish. Every runner has their own mantra or reason that when the chips are down will help move them forward. All marathon runners need to find their mental toughness, it is pivotal to success but rarely mentioned in training programs. I’m mentioning it here and if you take nothing else from this post but this it has been a success. Research the central governor, it could be the difference between success and failure, if you can convince your mind you  have everything under control you won’t be hearing from fatigue anytime soon.

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