Global Sports: The Couch To Marathon

Saturday, July 2, 2011

The Couch To Marathon

By Dade Hamill


Coaching runners within the last decade has taught me that the productive marathon experience isn't about a magical pill or plan. I have given the same training plan to 10 runners and witnessed ten totally different results. It's not so much about what you need to do to train as how you will take care of the impact of training on your life, body, and mind. Rather than talking of mileage weekly, it's more significant to discuss the principles of marathon training - what I will refer to here as the Key Six Phases of the marathon lifecycle.

Phase One: Commit

It's the first thing to place a marathon on the bucket list, it's another to actually pick a competition and drop your money on an entry payment. Registering in will give you something to show to your relatives and buddies; it's an event that you can mark as a milestone on the personal calendar. You never know, maybe you can even encourage some of your crazy buddies to register along with you!

Phase Two: Connect

Now that you are technically "in" in the race, it's time for you to begin to build a little group that will support and keep you going to your finish line. While you might have your own pre-existing team in place, here's a few things to do if you were to begin from the start. Choose a local running shop where one can have a seat and communicate (even if briefly) with a fellow runner about the right shoes for you. This shop will likely have the important information for the local run.

Phase Three: Conspire

Together with your event locked in together with a group to run with at least part of the period, now you can turn your focus to your marathon training schedule. Selecting the perfect plan has less to do with the plan itself, and more to do with you...so always put yourself first when creating your final decision.

Phase Four: Consistency

Whatever plan you do end up selecting, your number one aim is get follow it as closely as you can. The ideal training plans are "Easy To Do," for the reason that there isn't any super-hard sessions or hard to comprehend guidance. The supreme aim of any marathon plan is to get you ready to take care of the rigors of 26.2 miles - and the fastest way for doing that is to get you running as often as possible for so long as you can handle during that time.

Phase Five: Doubt
No one is ever honestly all set for race day. Talk with anyone at the starting line on race weekend and you'll hear a lot of fantastic memories of eliminating obstacles like injury, scheduling, health, etc. It's just part of what we do as runners; do your very best to be focused and don't be afraid to request for support from the networks you've built in early stages of your training.

Phase Six: Conserve
When you're in the running groove, you'll find that running is pretty effortless. You love it, it's strengthening and it's changing what you are. So if 40 miles every week is good...then 60 or 80 should be better, right? If the 20-miler is good, a 24-miler should be better, right? Wrong!

Bear in mind our mantra of Consistency above; getting aggressive with all or a part of your training is really a major gamble. The gamble might help some, but they're frequently within the minority, and it's simply not worth it this early in your running profession.




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