This week my focus has been on:
- Looking after my legs to make sure they are fresh for Sunday so not too much running plenty of walking and some stretching and ice baths.
- Staying hydrated in the build up right the week through by drinking plenty of water mixed in with some green teas and fruit juices.
- Plenty of rest by aiming to get to bed by 10pm every night and not being busy in the evenings.
- Carb loading, making sure I have been eating a good quantity and good variety of good carbohydrates.
A great article I found with some great advice on pre marathon preparation is here its an article written by Olympic Marathon runner Scott Overall so its definitely from a source you can trust! His blog on realbuzz is definitely worth checking out as it has some great advice on all things running related.
I have increased my carbohydrate consumption a little through the week but now its Thursday I am really upping my game.
I have been sneaking extra carbs into my diet by eating plenty of potato and by adding a tortilla wrap to a meal or having a wrap with peanut butter as a snack.
My eating plan for today is shaping up like this:
Eggs on toast for breakfast, plenty of fruit, brown rice for lunch, flapjack for an afternoon snack, more fruit and steak and mashed potato for dinner.
I try and minimize my wheat intake as I don't like being bloated so cut down on bread and pasta options.
Brown rice always plays a part in my pre race diet both in terms of a good low fat clean eating lunch option and a good carb loading source in the build up to a run.
Flapjacks are also a key ingredient of my pre race diet as a good carb heavy snack and as my pre race meal. They weigh in at over 400 calories and around 60g of carbohydrate so they are not a light option but will provide me with the fuel I need to complete the marathon ahead.
Thanks for reading, what are your carb loading secrets and tips? Any advice on marathon build up and what to do/what not to do in the week before a marathon?
The 1-3 weeks before any race I like to call the "sharpening" period, where you sharpen your body to real race pace while recovering at the same time. This generally means a drop in volume but an increase in overall higher speed running to stimulate neurological fitness. You don't want to get lazy and stale during a taper!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to consider with calories is that due to the nature of a taper (reduced volume) you're using less energy as well.
My best too pieces of advice for a taper are:
1) Running too little/easy is just as bad as running too hard/much
2) Better to go into a race 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained
3) Don't use "carb loading" as an excuse to eat junk food ;)
Great advice thanks, I reduced my mileage to around 25% volume which worked really well and my legs felt fresh for race day.
DeleteI like the idea of 'sharpening up' and think I will do a few more up tempo runs in the week before my next marathon.
Despite the carb loading period I was impressed with how 'clean' I managed to eat and tried to stick to whole grains and cut out dairy and refined sugars. I definitely felt the benefit of a cleaner and higher carb diet, I was consuming around 3500 calories per day for the 3 days pre marathon and was aiming at having this made up of 60%+.