Running Balance Between Training and Resting

I’m currently negotiating my way through the down time between marathons that involves a strange paradox between being aware that your body is just about as fit as it can get yet you have to hold yourself back to ensure it doesn’t break down. The experts say that the most likely time to suffer a serious injury is in the weeks immediately following a marathon. This is due not only to the rigors of the race itself which takes a toll on the body, but also the cumulative effect of all that training you’ve put yourself through to get to the marathon start line.

I was a little apprehensive this year because I was following up my marathon effort with a half-marathon that was scheduled only a few weeks later. The worry was in trying to get my body back up in time to put in a reasonable half-marathon without breaking down. It’s now a few weeks down the track and it looks as though I have managed my body well because, apart from a small cold last week, it looks as though I’ve come through injury free.

This is just as well because the 18 week training schedule to prepare for the Melbourne Marathon in October is due to start next Monday. In the early stages this doesn’t really mean a great deal in terms of a change in intensity of my runs. But it will mean the number of runs that I do per week will increase. While in recovery mode I was only running 3 times a week, giving my body as much chance to recover from the strains as I possibly could. The training schedule will step that up to 5 running days per week and 2 recovery days.

The whole aim of the first few weeks of the training regime is to build up a solid base that will prepare the body for the more intensive training sessions that are to come. Over the coming days I will try to detail a little more specifically what my training schedule will involve.