This is the question I get all the time? How do you stay injury free? I’ll tell you. The key to running multiple marathons back to back is all about recovery. If you are not recovered from the first, you stand a high risk of being injured on the second. Being sedentary is not as productive for cellular regeneration as something that will generate greater blood flow in the affected areas. Running in water, walking, even swimming may generate that greater blood flow. In addition to recovery, creating less cellular damage in the muscles can be important, as well. This can be done by running slower and even walking during parts of your marathons. When I am running back to back marathons, I slow down my pace by at least an hour of what I am capable of running so that I can recover quicker.
Before your first marathon, building additional strength, to support the joints, during a marathon, can be beneficial to injury prevention. Stretching can also be beneficial to reduce tightness which could create pulling and imbalance issues.
There are many other components like, nutrition, getting enough protein for recovery, like my favorite Vega protein shakes, proper shoes, like my favorite ASICS, getting enough sleep and of course marathon training, but you’ll have to buy the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Marathon Training for that, written by David Levine (my husband) and Paula Petrella 🙂
That’s all for now. Hope to see you out there out there on the course. Running to beat pancreatic cancer. #wegotthis
Running Day Shoe Giveaway: On June 3rd (National Running Day), for every 100 tweets using the hashtag #GoRunItJune3, ASICS will give away a free pair of running shoes to a random winner.