Things to avoid when running a marathon

Running a marathon is a celebration of the human body’s ability to endure. While marathons are far from what you would call a dangerous activity, there are still inherent risks involved. It’s important that you never underestimate the scope of your task, especially when an injury could set your fitness progress back several months. You might even sustain life-altering injuries from serious accidents. Here are some things you should never do when running a marathon.

Skipping Your Warm-Up

Marathons are long-distance routes that will put strain on your muscles and joints. Warm ups help prime your muscles for rigorous activity and they minimize the risk of an injury by increasing muscle elasticity. Warms ups also increase blood flow, which helps improve the ability of your muscles to exert effort.

Skipping Breakfast

While it’s difficult to run on a full stomach, it’s much worse to run on an empty stomach. This is because you’re very likely to experience premature fatigue or even a high blood sugar count. These will drastically hinder your ability to run, which will not only mean a weaker performance, but also a more agonizing time on the track because you’d be forced to run the distance in poor conditions.

You’d have to consume about 300 calories an hour before your run. This ensures that your body has calories to burn and that the food you eat has been fully digested by the time you start your run.

Starting a Race Too Fast

A marathon is more than just about running a long distance. It also requires strategy. Knowing how to pace yourself in a marathon is one of the most important things runners should master, as this outlines how you’re going to perform throughout the run. Runners who run too fast too early risk running out of strength over the later portions of the course. It’s important to stick to the pace that you’re capable of sustaining over a long period so you have reserved strength that you can use to power through the final stages of the course. 

Obsessing Over Your Personal Record

While tracking your numbers is the best way to quantify your performance, this shouldn’t become the onus of your activities. While we all want to improve, obsessing over these numbers kills the fun in running. You don’t want to be tracking your heart rate, pace-per-mile, or your average speed while there’s a beautiful world out there to witness and enjoy.Never forget your passion for the sport, and the reason you run in the first place. Sports are as much a matter of passion as they are a celebration of the capabilities of the human body.

Marathons are more difficult and more serious than they seem. Whether you’re a competitive runner, or you’re taking on a personal challenge to live a healthier life, it’s important to understand what you’re committing to, and to plan ahead. Knowing what mistakes to avoid is just as important as the things you should be doing as you prepare for a marathon.

posted Thursday March 3rd
by Colorado Runner