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Training for a Marathon/Mr & Mrs Millard/Sport Psychology/The Times/Body & Soul
Visualisation is crucial. See yourself running the way that you want to run: rhythmically, strongly, and well. If you think it, you will find it easier to do it.
As the gruelling training starts to kick in, our marathon guinea pigs learn how to stay in the zone
Mrs Millard thinks
“It’s not the running, but the thinking about the running that is dreadful”
Five weeks to go. Actually, there are seven, but during the last two weeks marathon runners are supposed to put their feet up and eat pasta. I’m eating like a horse. Cake has never tasted so delicious. But never mind, I think as I pound the roads of North London (asphalt is kinder on the kneecaps than pavement), I’m doing so much running that I can eat whatever I like. Apart from chocolate, of which more later.
Three months of marathon training has turned me into something of an obsessive. I’m never happier than when talking about the mountain that must be faced on April 13. Conversely, I’m dreading the event so much that I almost physically recoil from thinking about it. Two sessions with Amanda Owens, a sports psychologist, have helped enormously. In her view, visualisation and the inner conversation are what will get me round the 26.2 miles.
First, I must visualise myself running. “Imagine you are looking good,” Owens says. That’s easy, since I have a flash new outfit, which is gorgeous; long, lean running pants and a top so light it is seemingly made from skeins of air. Secondly, I must remember every landmark on my five and ten-mile runs. These will help me in the marathon, since I can use them to help me talk myself around the course when the going gets tough.
Tough is good, however. Long runs are tough, although after 16 miles (my current personal best) the notion of flogging around ten more is nauseating. I’m in a slight panic about needing the loo on the way round, too, but Owens has ways of dealing with that. “Turn it around. Accept that you will probably need to go. That way you’ll relax about it.” She’s right.
Sudden lavatorial urges also happen to elite runners such as Paula Radcliffe, which is comforting. Plus, I read that giving up chocolate helps in that department. Who knows?
Frankly, there is so much mystique about the sacred 26.2 it’s surprising that it’s not an official religion. Former marathon conquerors keep popping out of the woodwork; the children’s French teacher admitted to me the other day that he has run five of the monsters. Five! “Add a mile each time you run,” was his advice. “Increasing ze mileage is easy.” Yes, well. Actually, I like increasing my mileage, if only to freak Mr Millard out by logging up progressively impressive figures on our communal mileage log. He is a bit of a sneak. Does nothing, then saunters out for a 17-mile sharpener.
The other thing that has happened is that I have started to enjoy running. Not at the start, which I dread, and not the first couple of miles. After about four, however, when everything is flowing evenly and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am indeed on my run, I start to feel good. I feel fit, fitter than ever, and I feel unburdened. No mobile phone, no e-mails, no keys, no bag. No work. No children. Just running.
My legs take care of the run, while my mind plots my course, and then flicks forward to organise the day ahead. And then the week ahead. I ponder relationships. I work out my VAT. I sort family dilemmas. I reorganise furniture in the house. I plan letters. I feel settled within myself. I feel alive.
And I am conscious that the charity I am running for, Help the Hospices, is devoted to people who are perilously close to losing all of this. If the running goes badly, and I feel as if I am moving through treacle, I force myself to look at the trees, and the streaks of dawn in the sky, and the fog resting on the park. If it gives me nothing else, training for the marathon has given me an appreciation of living which I never really knew I had. Well, I did say it was a kind of religion.
Rosie’s expert says...
Devise an inner dialogue, with uplifting and inspiring thoughts. This will help you when the running is difficult and will distract you from negative thinking.
Visualisation is crucial. See yourself running the way that you want to run: rhythmically, strongly, and well. If you think it, you will find it easier to do it.
Make sure that your emotions tie in with your body and that you are feeling confident and positive. Don’t think about being tired.
Incrementally increase your mileage by two miles a week, but allow some days off for recovery. Your body gets fitter on the days between runs.
Amanda Owens can be reached on www.believeconsulting.co.uk
Mr Millard thinks
“This isn’t getting any better, but, boy, have I lost a lot of weight”
It is 7.30 on a Sunday morning. It is cold and I’m not wearing an awful lot. Instead of being in bed I am on Hampstead Heath. Suddenly, I have a mad urge to sprint as fast as possible up the steepest hill in sight. As I jog, feeling smug, a metaphorical cloud darkens the bright blue sky. On it is the number “26” and the words “Flora London Marathon”. Ugh.
A depressive would recognise these highs and lows. One minute in my mind I am cantering round the London course, waving at the crowds and even thinking about the next marathon. Then the next moment I am hobbling along after five-plus hours in the company of Tweetie Pie and a man dressed as a banana, in danger of not finishing. I do have a veritable entourage of people cheering me on. Friends, neighbours, strangers, sometimes even my wife. Srbo, my personal trainer, urges me to train less but to lift more weights.
Lloyd Bradley, my running trainer, tells me to run much further. He wears ankle weights and checks his heart-rate monitor. On our fortnightly training run, Bradley persuades me to warm up doing so-called stride-outs, slow-motion running that makes me feel like a complete spanner. He says my style is slowly improving and is impressed that I have just completed the longest run of my life, about 17 miles in less than three hours. It’s a slightly more positive reaction than Rosie’s, who seems rather vexed at the news. Although she soon recovers her poise as my legs seize up. She suggests that I seek help.
Sammy Margo, a physiotherapist, says she has plenty of Joe Joggers coming through her doors at this time of the marathon training season. She compares my cramped posture to that of a spider’s, hamstrings all bunched up, shoulders bent inwards. She blames the desk job for my ills.
After assessing me on the treadmill, she congratulates me on my core strength (thanks, Srbo), before dissing the rest of my pathology. My running style holds up for about four minutes, after which it all goes wrong: my right foot starts flicking out; I stop landing on my heels; and my arms are “flappy” (better than flabby, I suppose).
At seven minutes, my right foot is in the basket-case bracket, too, as I’m landing on my toes. My head is, inexplicably, sticking out and unbalancing me. I conjure up the image of a swan. This is a disaster as birdlife has never done well in the London Marathon. At 11 minutes, my arms are very “busy”, ie, pumping up and down in enthusiastic reject mode and my right foot is rolling over, or pronating.
Margo says that I need to work on lengthening my middle back, ie, not crouching. She gives me a series of hamstring stretching exercises that I can do while I’m at my desk. Thereby lies running redemption. Otherwise I am destined to make only average progress towards the Holy Grail that is the finishing line in front of Buckingham Palace.
It would also help if I stuck to the running schedule. But suddenly it’s Friday tomorrow and I haven’t run all week. The demons in my head tell me that entering the London Marathon remains madness. This is about the only point on which Rosie and I agree.
Rosie keeps on asking me “will we make it?”. There are plenty of moments over the next month which might provide the answer. In particular there is the grim-sounding “Finchley 20-miler” race and the Kingston Breakfast Run, a mere bagatelle at 16 miles. But on a high note, I have lost nearly a stone.
Philip’s expert says...
Make sure that you are including stride-outs in your training sessions. These involve running at a slower speed in a very correct style to improve your muscle memory for this posture.
Pay attention to your breathing on longer runs to make sure you are keeping to the right rhythm as you tire.
Incorporate strength training into your schedule, especially core exercises.
Set precisely definable goals on at least one run a week and measure your improvement accurately.
Maximise the positive. At this stage, it’s too easy to focus on how badly you’re doing or how miserable you feel.
Lloyd Bradley is the author of The Rough Guide to Running (£9.99); e-mail lloyd@fit4lifemedia.com
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Use Immodium to avoid the dreaded "pitstop". Good luck in the marathon - I've given up having run 12 of the bl**dy things.
Edward, Cheltenham, Uk
I have to say having just done the Reading Half Marathon that this visualisation number is GREAT. Really helped - I couldn't have done it without it...
Rosie
Rosie Millard, London, United Kingdom