Marathon training II : Improving form and avoiding injury

It is a delicate and frustrating balance...

The ultimate paradox of running and other endurance training is that as one's form improves, the danger of getting injured increases. Just when everything was going better than ever, I started to feel pain in my hamstrings again, and this week I had to back off from running. On the positive side, it has been a week of unusually nice and warm weather, so I could enjoy hiking and just relaxing in the sun, in addition to strength training and swimming. But the fear that the pain might not go away is extremely disturbing.

It is so typical! As our form improves, we are able to endure more and more training, but as the distance and intensity increase, so does the danger of injuries. Muscles can endure a lot, the lung capacity gets better and better, but the joints and the tendons are fragile, especially the older we are. I mentioned it once in an earlier blog entry, but I want to share it again: the story of Tom Goom, who is a physiotherapist in addition to being an experienced marathoner. It is a textbook example of what NOT to do.

First things first: maybe I focused too much on the negative sides of marathon training last week. There is a lot of satisfaction and feeling of achievement involved with following such a program and seeing the results. When I came back from holidays, it took me about two weeks to get to the speed that should correspond to my training level. I had been running quite a bit slower during the hot summer in Turkey, and coming back to the cool summer of Norway did not give the immediate speed effect that I was expecting. Just three days after coming back, I did my worst 5k race ever. Two weeks after that, I did one of my best 10k races. A week later, I had a 20k tempo run which was considerably faster than my planned marathon pace, and it went all nice and easy. In addition to all this, the real long runs, 30k or more, which felt really painful in the beginning, started to feel much easier and go faster and faster.

So everything was going just perfect. In the first few weeks after coming home and starting to follow the marathon training program more conscientiously, I was often quite exhausted, and could only do four of the five planned running sessions. As my form improved, though, I was able to endure more training, and I started to do all five running sessions of the week. I felt better and better; both form-wise and with respect to how little tired I was.

I have been all the time taking extra caution with respect to injuries, doing my leg strength and HSR training exercises regularly, and taking a lot of dietary supplements to stay healthy and keep strong tendons. I am a bit embarrassed to share the following picture, but this is in fact what I take every morning, hoping that they will keep me away from injuries. I am not sure whether they are of help, but I am pretty convinced that at least they don't hurt.

But in the end, although I've been cautious and listening to my body,  you see that things may still go wrong. Hopefully not terribly wrong... At least there is no acute injury that happened during a run. I had a nice 34 k run last Sunday. I rested on Monday. I had leg strength training Tuesday morning, and a zone 1 15 k run Tuesday evening.  In fact the 15 k was supposed to be 19 k, 13 of which would go in marathon pace, but I felt like taking it easy. So far so good. But Wednesday morning I woke up feeling pain in both upper hamstrings tendons. I was really in doubt about what to do. I had planned to participate in a 10 k race on Thursday, but I canceled it to be on the safe side, and went for an easy hike instead. That turned extremely spectacular and gave me the chance to catch up with friends I had not seen in a while. So there has been no running since Tuesday, which is perhaps a good rest for my legs in any case. Today I hope that I am ready to run again.

Fingers crossed. Only four weeks now...