If you’ve picked up running over the past year (along with the thousands of other Aussies who seemingly have as well) you’ll be fully aware of how addictive it can be. It feels incredible when things that seemed impossibly hard suddenly start to feel within reach. When your boundaries no longer feel as rigid as you first thought and expand into areas you couldn’t dream of being possible.
As someone who has vehemently identified as ‘not a runner’ for the majority of my life, I never thought completing anything over a few kilometres would be possible – so when a half marathon was waved in front of me I found it, quite literally, preposterous.
But a break-up, mixed with the rise of run clubs and sexy as fuck running attire pushed me over the edge to say, ‘let’s go… I guess?’
If you’ve been running socially with friends, have been keen to test yourself on a further distance, or just want to see how fast you can go under race conditions, I have five tips I wish I knew ahead of my first half-marathon.
Whether you want to gear up for a half marathon, full marathon or any distance in between, if you embrace these five tips into training, you’ll smash your running goals in no time.
Take recovery as seriously as your training
When you’re training, you’ve got your sights set on a distance, pace or heart rate goal so it can be easy to overlook rest. Without planning out your recovery and thinking about it the same way as your running, you could risk not being able to reach your goal.
Nike Pacific Run Coach Lydia O’Donell said that recovery is the time where your body gets to process all of the hard work you’ve undertaken in training.
“Without the recovery phase, you ultimately could overload yourself and end up either plateauing and not increasing your performance any further, or you could get injured or burnt out,” said O’Donell.
“So recovery is a really essential part to your training journey, to allow the body to absorb the training as much as possible.”
Recovery will look different for everyone. Perhaps it’s a slow run or it could even be not running at all. Maybe it’s swimming, maybe it’s yoga or perhaps some meditation. Whatever it is, find the form of recovery that works for you and adopt it as a part of your training routine.
When you fuel your body correctly — it rewards you
Nutrition is obviously going to make an impact, but I didn’t realise how much of a difference fuelling up with what you need before and after your run can do for your training.
It is literally the difference between a run feeling good and a run feeling hard. If you’re trying to squeeze in your running around other commitments and have a morning run planned out, don’t skip breakfast (!).
Something that is important is making sure you’re getting a mix of everything you need to get out there. A favourite of mine over my training period was Greek yoghurt with crushed up Weet-Bix, sliced banana and honey. It literally feels like I’m having a runner’s breakfast McFlurry and I can rely on it to keep me going when things feel hard. Give it a try and trust me, it’s truly chef’s kiss.
Some days will feel harder than others and that’s okay — it’s part of it
Some days you’re not going to want to get out there and go for a run, and that’s okay. If anything it’s very normal. It’s also important to know that not every run is going to feel amazing. Some days are going to be hard and that’s just part of it.
I would often be shocked how one day a run would feel incredible and the exact same run the next day would feel like such an immense challenge, but in those moments shift your focus to ‘getting out there’ becoming the goal and find ways to make it easier for yourself.
On nights after work where I felt exhausted and a run felt like the hardest thing on earth, I’d select a run from the Nike Run Club app which has dozens of free guided runs to choose from. This allowed all my effort to be funnelled into the goal of leaving the house and the actual run part I handed over to the coach on the other side of my headphones. Kudos Coach Bennett, you really do the most.
Don’t introduce anything new on race day
If you take one thing from this article, let it be this — do not Introduce anything new on race day. Whatever you’ve trained with, stick with that because the risk of something going amiss and throwing out months of training when it comes to doing the damn thing is very real.
In my half marathon training for the Nike Melbourne Marathon I didn’t train with gels, but I thought that I might give them a go come race day. I was a little nervous about how this would go, given the fact that I had never tried one before, so trying to imagine the flavour and texture (squishy?) was a little intimidating.
When I asked O’Donell her thoughts on this, her advice was magic. “Nothing new on race day,” she told me, and encouraged me to opt for something else I’d actually eaten before like a lolly snake.
12 kilometres into the race and I pulled out a lolly snake from my pocket. I’ll be real with you, just having half of it was difficult and made me feel slightly queasy. In another world where I had the gel on race day I envision a full vom on the race track. Not exactly the goal I had in mind for my first half mara.
So please repeat after me the wise words of Nike Run Coach Lydia O’Donell: “Nothing new on race day.”
Acknowledge the milestones on your journey and enjoy it
Lastly, it’s important to acknowledge your milestones that you reach along your journey. Make sure you enjoy your process and champion your achievements throughout your training.
When you’re in it, you can forget how something that feels easy now was once painfully difficult a few months ago. Make sure you don’t forget that and you’re aware of how far you’ve come.
Once you finally get out there on race day, know that you’ve already done everything you can, so the most important thing is to have fun and be proud of yourself and everything you’ve put into your running journey.
It’s one foot after the other and you should be proud of every step. You’ve worked so hard, so make sure you soak it all up and enjoy it.
