You Can’t Cram for a Marathon – Stay Positive No Matter Where You Are in Your Training


Keep Your Head Up

The LA Marathon is coming up in less than two weeks and the Catalina Marathon is 13 days after that. We have a lot of SoCalRunning.com members and readers participating in these two races. Now is not the time for those ANT’s (Automatic Negative Thoughts) to start creeping in. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN.

All of you have been training, some better than others, and you are where you are. Like I tell the Beach Runners, “You can’t cram for a marathon or half marathon.” Don’t try to cram in a lot of training now to catch up, it should be quite the opposite, now is the time to rest and recover. You should keep doing your taper routine and it should have some shorter, higher intensity workouts. They usually have a higher payoff than long workouts at this point in your race preparations.

It is flu season and there is a lot of stuff going around out there. If you get a cold, cough or something worse, take a few a days off from training. Training is meant to stress the body which decreases your immunity system. With this short amount of time left, a better focus is getting better than pushing through. This is the same if you have some type of nagging injury. Also consider body work, massage and/or a visit to your sports or regular doctor.

Remember, you are too close to get completely derailed. Having trained well over 1,000 athletes I have seen it all happen before the race and had it happen to me. Here’s my story: A year and a half ago I herniated a disc in my back two weeks before the Long Beach International City Bank Marathon. I couldn’t even walk. I had to give up my plans of running even a 5k that day. I was very depressed. I had coached almost 300 athletes to complete this race and ran with them every Saturday for the last 21-weeks. On, race day I had to limp around, in pain, and cheer on my athletes. It was a great lesson. I can’t plan life. There is always another marathon and in the next year I completed 3 full marathons and my first ultra-marathon. If you can plan for it, don’t do something stupid this late in the game.

Stay positive, think smart, listen to you body and pray for perfect weather. In reality that’s about all you can do. And, when it all comes together you’ll have a great race. This was written especially for you first timers. Relax, Empty and Let Go then Let’s Go. See you at the marathon expos and races.

Think Focused, Steve Mackel, CMT – Head Coach MarathonTraining.TV

February 19, 2008 | Filed Under Steve's Posts 

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