Coopah How To: Avoid Injury and Setbacks During Your Marathon Training

We know that getting injured whilst training for a marathon is pretty much the last thing that any runner wants to happen. And whilst unfortunately we cannot 100% guarantee this won’t happen (sorry) there are things you can do during your training to give you the best possible chance to get to the start line injury free.

Please note, if you have an existing injury, are coming back from injury or have a medical condition we would always suggest to consult a physio or medical professional before starting marathon training.

BUILD UP GRADUALLY

As the famous saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And that is exactly the same approach you should take when it comes to marathon training.

I totally get that it can be tempting to throw yourself in 100% at the start - get out running every day, start ticking off those big runs, push yourself on your interval sessions, BUT this can be a recipe for disaster **if you try and do it all at once, or do too much too soon.

Our bodies are incredible things, but they also aren’t invincible. They need time to adjust, they need time to adapt and they need time to rest and recover. So you need to make sure you give yourself that time.

The longer you give yourself to prepare for a marathon, the better. If you start now you can get your body used to running regularly, you can slowly start to increase the distance of your long runs and start to introduce harder runs to your weekly schedule

With Coopah, you don’t have to wait until 16 weeks to go, you can start your plan from today. So why not start now and give yourself an extra few weeks to build up your mileage and make running a habit.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY

This is probably one of the most important things you can do during your training to ensure you don’t pick up an injury, and that is listening to your body.

Remember, you know your own body better than anybody else, and only you know if you are really pushing yourself too hard. Yes, it is true that during marathon training you may have a few aches & pains, and it’s important to remember that this is normal. You’re working hard and putting your body through a lot. But what’s not normal is having pain that stops you from being able to run, is painful when resting or if you notice something that just really isn’t right.

Sometimes it is really easy to ignore those early signs, but that is only going to make things worse in the long run (pun intended). If you are worried about something, it’s always best to be over cautious and take an extra rest day, and seek professional help, and hopefully if you get the problem sorted early on it won’t put you out of action for a long time.

FUEL THE TANK

You know by now I love an analogy - so I want you to think of the petrol tank in your car. When the petrol tank is full, you can drive around for miles and miles without worrying about the car breaking down, or doing any damage to the engine.

But what about when you start emptying that tank? Or you get down to the red line? Your car will warn you that it needs fuel, and fast. And if you don’t fill up soon - you could risk getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, or even worse might end up with an expensive trip to the garage.

I want you to think of your bodies the same way. Our bodies need calories just to survive day to day, and once you throw in marathon training in the mix it’s even more important to make sure you are keeping those fuel stores topped up.

Not only will this help you from a performance side, but it also plays a massive part in your recovery too. Our muscles cannot repair if we are running on empty. And if you aren’t giving your body the chance to repair, it means you are at more risk of injuring yourself if you continue to use them.

If you’re not sure where to start, fear not as we will be providing lots more advice over the coming weeks about how to ensure you fuel your marathon training properly.

REST + RECOVERY

I touched on this earlier, but rest and recovery is really one of the biggest pieces of the marathon training puzzle. Rest days are where the magic happens. It’s where your body absorbs all of the training you have done in the previous days, and allows your muscles to repair and recover so you can then continue to train.

When your body is tired, you are more susceptible to picking up niggles and injuries, so I want you to think of your rest days as being just as (if not) more important as your training days.

I would always recommend to have at least one full rest day per week - so that means no running and no cross training. Instead, use those days to do as little as possible physically, and perhaps just go for a walk or use the time you normally spend training to finally use that foam roller that has been collecting dust in the corner 😉.

Next week I am going to cover another area which is key for injury prevention… Strength and Conditioning.

Because yes, it’s that important it deserves it’s own blog post. So stay tuned.

Coach Jordan 🧡