There is officially one week to go before the Irving Marathon and as of writing this, only four days left for Janel and I! It was time to accept what was to come and acknowledge it could no longer be avoided. It’s funny how sometimes the idea of running a marathon sounds a lot of fun until you look back at your training and the race is only a week away. Well, as we often say here, only future us will know how it will turn out!

With the race approaching, I wanted to share some average tips on what to do leading up to one’s race and what not to do. As you may have guessed, I was doing many things of the latter. It does make this blog more exciting at the very least.

Follow Your Training Plan

Most training plans have a runner running less mileage the last couple weeks leading into a big race. This tapering process will give you extra energy and it is encouraged to rest as much as you can with this extra energy. Typically, most plans will have easy runs with a few sprints to keep the legs fresh. One outlier to this rule though is Frank Shorter, Olympic Gold Medalist in the marathon, who continued brutally hard workouts up until a few days before his marathon win. Most of us will not see the same results as Frank if we tried this process.

What not to do: Do not do a last minute time trial to see where your fitness level is at. I decided to do a hard (to me) hill workout Monday and it was not a good use of my energy. I managed to have a good time getting up the hill quick though! On the bright side, I did an easy run today and that will be the plan Thursday. Kinda doing the right thing, kinda not…

Fuel up the Right Way

Did I skip fried food in December? Nope. Did I cut out my pints?? Nope. Did I at least have one salad in December? Yes! That was my lunch today. Only one of these was a surprise for your averagerunnerpaul…

We all know that eating healthy is the way to go and data suggests this fuels our race efficiency. For others, they may respond better with worse food. Once again, to highlight Frank Shorter, he had multiple beers the night before he won the Olympic marathon. I’ll skip the pre-race beer the night before but I can’t say my pre race dinner will be that healthy.

What not to do: Don’t eat too much spice if you aren’t used to it. I love a good habanero sauce but the next day, my body does not. Typically 10 minutes after eating it my body doesn’t like it either. Another tip is to eat a typical amount in one serving rather than gorging oneself at the dinner table. It’s a good way to wake up the next day as a lean, mean, fighting machine when you portion control.

Rest, Rest, REST!

Now that heading doesn’t seem too restful at all. With extra energy from tapering, it is good to get time off the legs. A little movement is good each day but you want to limit activities that may strain yourself or put you at risk for soreness on race day.

What not to do: Don’t cross train like crazy! I actually followed this rule for once! At least so far. I normally increase my cycling time when I run less and managed to keep my feet up on the couch instead. A good book helped my cause and I decided to skip lifting this week too. Skipping lifting was actually easy since I’m not too strong or motivated by weights.

The Build Up

I am in an okay position to have my average race. I threw out my back when December started (see getting old) and that knocked me off my feet for about a week. I was hoping to get in one last three hour run but my back couldn’t handle more than 20 minutes of running. Luckily it is cooperating now with up to an hour so we shall see how game day goes.

I hope the end of the year is treating you well and the next post here will be the race report! Hoping for some smiles and good memories and if not, I’m sure you will hear either way.

Any fun things you do before race day? Fun traditions or routines or do you keep it nice and simple? I’d love to hear about it and have a great day!