Words from the Wise

My iPod's broken and my new one is waiting at the annoying Royal Mail depot - you know the one that is in the middle of nowhere and open for about five minutes a week. I don't run with an iPod but I do religiously listen to Marathon Talk podcast in the car, and so for the last month I've really missed it. I heard via running friends that Tom Williams who co presents the podcast was giving a lecture at the University of Leeds on marathons so along with fellow Eccleshill Road Runners, some who are also running London, I jumped at the chance of going.

Tom is a great speaker - really inspirational. He has so much experience in not only marathon running but also triathlon. What I most admire about him is that he's really passionate about being the best you can possibly be. The quote of the night for me when he was talking about interval training was, 'run as hard as you can. Don't limit yourself, you won't die'. And this really sums up what running is about for me, and I think many of the people I know - achieving things which we didn't think possible.

I've heard it said several times of running that you get out of it what you put in - running does seem to be fair like that: if you train right, you will get the results. So what did I learn tonight about training right?

Nutrition, sleep and rest/recovery are absolutely key to running a successful marathon, and these three elements must be right before even thinking about training.

Nutrition is about eating the right foods at the right times. Tom also reckons the most important thing is that we like the food we eat and have a bit of everything - carbs, essential minerals and protein. He also recommended that runners should increase their iron intake after long runs, either via supplements or preferably via food. Apparently, tea can prevent iron absorbing and vitamin C helps it. Eating straight after training is important as it aids recovery. He mentioned a book called 'In Defense of Food' by Michael Pollan about eating real food, which I might look into, as last year I really struggled to get my diet right when I was training hard - I would come home from running so hungry that I would eat anything in sight.

Getting enough sleep can have a real impact on your training and Tom suggested actually counting how many hours sleep you get per night for a week as it's probably less than you think you get. This, I guess, is linked to rest and recovery and ensuring there's a balance between hard and easy training sessions.

Once this is all in order, you can concentrate on training - another great quote about training was, 'run better, then run more', which I think is about ensuring quality in your training before trying to increase mileage. There's so much conflicting advice about this, as I've also heard that marathon training is all about 'time on your feet' but what Tom was saying made a lot of sense. He highly recommended running intervals as a key training session because this type of training will make marathon pace seem easier thus enabling you to run faster - I think I have got that right!

I got home from the lecture to find my rather large foam roller has arrived and with less than 15 weeks to go, I know it's time to start marathon training in earnest though I must admit, the fundamentals don't really seem to be in order: I haven't eaten well tonight because of rushing to the lecture; I'm writing this blog when I should be sleeping and having not run since Monday, I think I might be taking recovery a little too far.

Still, I know I will get on track and it's full steam ahead...