Conditioning
Increase your mental focus and hone your running and energy management skills. Do specific workouts, such as time trials, form and speed intervals, tempo runs, and surges to build your lung and heart capacity and practice running at your projected race pace.
More: How to Find a Race Pace That Works
Mastery
Mimic the specific terrain and conditions of your event and apply the Form Focuses that best suit those conditions. Research the race course, aid station locations, parking, and all other race logistics.
Taper Time
Don't overtrain. Scale back on your mileage the last two weeks before your race, but don't reduce the intensity or pace of your runs. This allows you to stay mentally and physically sharp without depleting your energy stores.
The Event
Make sure you have enough time to prepare yourself on race morning. Stay focused and relaxed. Soak up the positive energy around you at the start line, but don't get distracted. And don't start out too fast.
Rest and Renewal
Relish in your accomplishments and review your race experience. It's important to keep moving after your race, so spend this week doing light runs and easy cross-training workouts.
More: Cross-Training Tips for Runners
Here's an excerpt from Chi Marathon:
Ask me the single most important aspect of what raining for a marathon is and I'd answer you in a heartbeat: It's having your technique perfected while being as relaxed as possible. This is arguably more important, in the long term, than conditioning. Here's why: the more relaxed and efficient your running form is, the more easily you'll be able to run any distance and any speed and to enjoy running for as many years as you choose to do so. Whether you're running for an hour, six hours, or all day, it's never as much fun if your body is hurting or working harder than it needs to.
Most people think that running long miles is the hardest part of marathon training. We'd like you to disbelief you might have that running a marathon can be easy, fun, and healthy. In my mind, the hardest part of a marathon is the effort it takes you to train your mind to stay focused and maintain good running technique for the whole distance.
As Catherina McKiernan, world class runner and Chi Running Master Instructor, says in the forward of the Chi Marathon book, "Running is meant to be enjoyed, not endured." The same holds true for running a half or full marathon. It can be fully enjoyed by your body, mind and spirit.
More tips to successfully run a half or full marathon can be found in Chi Marathon: The Breakthrough Natural Running Program for a Pain-free Half Marathon and Marathon by Danny and Katherine Dreyer.
More: Chi Running and the Art of the Long Run
© ChiLiving, Inc. 2012
Sign up for your next
race.
Join the Conversation