This came along quickly didn’t it? It only feels like yesterday that you signed up for this thing, you promised yourself you’ll run miles and miles of training, gym every day and otherwise turn yourself into a super awesome running machine.
How did that go?
If your answer is “not quite as planned” then don’t worry, you are in the overwhelming majority of runners who feel the same. Two bits of advice I have for the start line;
Don’t compare your insides with someone else’s outsides
And
Don’t Panic!!
Right now you may be looking around at your friends who are running the marathon or perhaps at the start line where everyone just looks in a state of bliss, no nerves or anxiety amongst any of them. Let me tell you something I have learned from speaking to 100s of marathon runners over the years, everyone is chewing up on the inside, everyone is a little bit scared and worried that they have not quite done enough to get to the finish line.
So are you a bit scared? Good. You should be and so is everyone else. You are about to do something that is pretty amazing, probably harder than anything you have done before and these feelings of worry and fear will translate later into feelings of euphoria and achievement.
In my first marathon I was so nervous my node bled for the first 3 miles. I turned up at the start expecting there to be marathon bouncers who would look at you and decide that you are not fit to start. I thought they would just look at me and laugh me away, “Ha ha ha, you’re avin’ a laugh aren’t you”.
Here follows some practical advice for surviving your first marathon.
The night before the night before
You’ll have heard no doubt that sleep is important for many reasons, it allows us to rest, to switch off from the previous day, and to regenerate our brains to tackle the next day. Without it, we will be unproductive slow zombies.
Don’t panic about not getting much sleep the night before. You are nervous and perhaps paranoid about oversleeping or just can’t stop thinking about the race. I remember in my first marathon I woke up every 20 minutes paranoid that I didn’t have enough safety pins. It’s normal, don’t panic.
It is quite likely that you will not sleep well the night before, this is fine, don’t worry too much about it just try as best you can to relax. You are not an iPhone who will just cease to function when the battery runs out, your battery has much more life than you can ever imagine (those with young children will know this better than most).
For me, sleep is a bonus if I can get it the night before but I don’t let it worry me if it doesn’t happen.
It is actually more important to get a good night’s sleep the night before the night before so try to create the conditions to allow this. Don’t force yourself up by an alarm or commit to too much activity in the morning.
If possible try to avoid any stress in the previous week. You don’t want demons floating around in your head the night before so if you can avoid moving house, getting divorced, dealing with idiots at work or supporting Arsenal in the week before the race that would help massively.
Check form
26 miles is a long way. You’ll probably hit the ground about 50 thousand times and it is hard to get all of these things perfect. You are told that putting one foot in front of the other is easy; ask them to do it on running 21 miles. Sometimes getting the feet to lift of the ground is quite hard.
Use the mile markers as “form checks”. Whenever you see them ask yourself “Is my stride good, am I standing tall, how are my feet landing? Am I thirsty, do I need more energy? Am I running too fast? Or too slow?”
Use these to prompt a mental checklist that you will then act on every mile. It is easy to forget these simple things and then run into all sorts of trouble. If you think about them constantly though you might just go insane and miss out on lots of the atmosphere.
“When I was thirsty – I drank”
The best advice came from Forrest Gump when he said “When I was thirsty – I drank”. It really isn’t any more complicated that this.
Your body is a magnificent feat of biological engineering that has been perfected over millions of years to perform endurance exercise in fairly warm conditions. Your sweat processes and heat management is almost unique in the animal kingdom and is potentially a contributing factor to how we have had the time to grow these huge brains that have led to great leaps of science and culture such as quantum physics, the Mona Lisa and Gogglebox.
It knows when it needs water, better than any textbook. Contrary to a lot of old textbooks if you are thirsty you are NOT “somewhat” dehydrated, you are just thirsty, simple as that.
The two biggest mistakes I have seen in marathons are;
Not drinking when thirsty early on as it is inconvenient to do so and drinking robotically to a schedule, ignoring your bodies opinion on the need for fluid.
People not drinking early when they are thirsty and then trying to “catch up” later on by drinking like a fish. Have you ever downed a pint then had to run for the last train? The results will be similar, only with more people watching. And TV cameras.
Simply try to quench your thirst the day before and in the morning and if you are thirsty at mile 3 then don’t say “I’ll just crack out a few more miles before having a drink”, just have a drink then.
But don’t drink robotically to a schedule. Drinks manufacturers have made a lot of money telling us we should be drinking more than we need, ruining many a marathon and charging for the privilege. Let your body decide. It’s not stupid.
OK maybe a bit… but for other reasons.
Also, drinking DOES NOT cool you down. pouring water on your skin does but if it is a hot day still only drink when thirsty, there is no mechanism whereby putting cold fluid in you cools you down.
