Late training cycle drama

One of the things you learn to live late in a hard marathon cycle with is drama.  Chances are if you’re going to get hurt or sick it’s going to be in the final third or quarter of your cycle.  That’s exactly when it will cause the most drama in your life.

If you follow any of the major marathon training sites, you’ll start to see the drama level ramp up as you get close to race date.  People are positively bugging out of their minds in these discussions.

“I have a pain in my ankle that won’t go away, should I do my final long run!!??”

“I’ve been in bed with the flu for a week, can I still race??!!”

You can hear the anxiety dripping off the page, so to speak.  People are already excited about the event.  By this point in the training they’ve made their plans.  They’re thinking about race-day stuff like weather and what to wear.  The event has started to email exciting pre-race notifications.

And then it happens. Bam! Some unplanned injury, or sickness or event that blows up a week or two of training right at the peak of it. Oh! The humanity!

I have lived through enough training cycles to give you some advice on this.

First, breath.  Relax.  What ever happens, you are going to be ok.  You can’t change the past and the future is yet to come so stop making yourself crazy with anxiety over something you can’t change or something that hasn’t happened yet.

Ok.  Calm?  Great.  Let’s get started. What’s your first question?

“I missed one or two of my peak weeks of training due to injury or illness, (including a long run), should I double up in the remaining couple weeks to make up for it?”

No.  Don’t be an idiot.  Just do whatever your original plan was.  Maybe slightly adjust the cycles a bit to get your cadence in line with the race date.  Just pretend the 1-2 week hit never happened.  Move on.

If you are late in your training cycle, let’s say within 6 weeks, you’ve already got a lot of the fitness earned and re-injuring yourself or over-training isn’t going to help your race.  This is not a test you can cram for.  Protect what you’ve already earned and bring it to the race with you.

“I lost a week or two to injury and/or sickness should I skip my taper so I can make up for the training?”

No, you’re still being an idiot.  The hay is in the barn.  Skipping your taper is not going to make you more fit, it’s just going to give you dead legs for your race. Let your body recover.  Go into your race fresh.

“My doctor says I broke my anti-tibial-redaction-tendon and I’m 4 weeks out for my race, what do I do? Can I still run the race?”

This is a great question.  First, remember the doctor is always going to be conservative because they don’t want you to hurt yourself and, frankly, they don’t care as much about your race as you do. They aren’t emotionally or physically invested in it.  It’s your body.  You get to make this call.

Whether or not you show up for the race is a game day decision.  You already paid you might as well show up, pick up your stuff and see what happens.  Go in with no expectations and be willing to walk away.  You’ve really got nothing to lose.

If it’s a serious or life-threatening injury or you’re not quite sure, it’s ok to not run the race.  You’ve got the rest of your life.  In the grand scheme of things, you’ll get another shot.

One thing you can do is call the race director, tell them you can’t run but you’d love to be involved.  See if you can work the finish line and hand out hugs and high five.  That’s a great time.

“The Doctor says I have an inflamed crucial-trilateral-interior-pterodactyl, I may be able to run the race, but I can’t train and I’m 4 weeks out, what should I do?”

This is a very common situation.  Most injuries late in training cycles are not acute, they’re over-use injuries.  The challenge is that you haven’t finished your cycle and now you can’t train any more.

In these cases, you goal is to maintain the fitness you have.  This late in the cycle “the hay is in the barn”.  Typically, you can’t run but maybe you can ride a bike.  Worst case you can pool-run.  Pool-running isn’t going to make you race fit, but it can maintain your race fitness for a couple weeks.  It can get you to your race.

You can also work on your strength and flexibility.  Yoga is great for this.  As is any other non-impact flexibility exercise.  If you can maintain your fitness and go into you race flexible and strong you might be surprised at how you perform.

This is also where you can buy braces and wraps and such to support the offending tendons.  A good knee brace or ankle brace can give you the confidence to race.

“What about nutrition?  I can’t run what should I do with my nutrition?”

Great question.  If you’re like me, you count on 5,000-10,000 calories burned in training each week to stay race lean.  You, my friend my must put the brakes on your eating.  You’re not training as hard, you’re probably eating more from the stress and not burning as much.

Start to watch what you’re putting in your face and focus on nutrition dense, calorie low foods like fruits, nuts, vegetables and lean meats.  An extra 5 pound can be the difference in whether you can hold on or crash out in a race.

“What about my anxiety?  I already had race anxiety, now I’m wiggin out!”

Chill.  All worrying is going to do is make you tired.  When these waves of anxiety or panic come over you focus on your breathing.  Focus on the now.  Be present in the moment.  Disengage from those emotions and observe what is happening.  This is not you.  This is your thinking mind trying to get you riled up.  Just sit back and watch it.  It doesn’t need to be fixed.  Just breath and observe.  It is what it is.

“What can I do on race day to raise the chances of running well with my strained prefrontal-peroneal-fascia?”

This is an excellent question.  I have found that going into a race in these situations ends one of two ways.

First is the unhappy path where you know in the first 10K that the injury is real and you’re not going to be able to race.  In this case, smile, take a deep breath, and either jog it in or walk away.  You tried.  Don’t be a hero.  You’ve got the rest of your life to race.

Second, and not uncommon, is the happy path.  I have found going into a race worried about a late cycle injury causes you to run conservatively early.  This means you build strength and confidence as you go and finish strong.

This is how you should approach race day execution.  Go out slow and easy and let the race come to you.

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Hope that helps.

Chris,