What happens now? With many of this year’s marathons disappearing from the calendar amid the Covid-19 pandemic, what does an eager runner turn their attention to next?
It’s a massive disappointment when a particular race you’ve put all your focus into is cancelled. Up until mid-March, each step, each mile was done with a goal in sight: that finish line at your race of choice. The feeling of euphoria after. The medal. The picture for the mantlepiece. The sheer feeling of achievement. Now, it’s wiped away.
With various races cancelled, many runners will carry on as before, maintaining fitness levels but with no clear focus. Some like the prospect of having a race to focus on, while others simply run to clear the mind and sort any issues that may be flowing around the brain.
Running is the best therapy to keep you stress-free, especially in these uncertain times when there is no clear indication as to when everything will get back to normal worldwide.
With that, the prospect of mass-participation races happening in 2020 looks remote. Therefore, this is the perfect chance to get faster at shorter distances, which will give your future marathon times a significant boost.
Granted finishing short distances may not offer the same satisfaction as a marathon, however, the pleasure should come from your training being varied and taking up less time.
If used to doing two sessions a week, try Kenyan-style fartlek, which is running two minutes fast, two minutes easy for 20-30 minutes. Or some hill sprints to help improve your speed and running mechanics.
You can train with people to give you a push as it is a lot easier to achieve a goal when you involve others. Having friends, family or teammates onboard makes you competitive, helps you to continuously better your previous times and, most importantly, to stay committed.
Staging a combined distance to achieve over a one month period – if government guidelines allow in your respective country – makes for a real-life race against each other. The more you try something, the more you will improve.
This could be anything from running 100km across the month to beating your friends in a virtual 1km, 2km, 5km or 10km in a bid to raise funds for charity.
In truth, to be a better long-distance runner, you need to be better over these shorter distances. Maybe you didn’t get a chance to be faster before as you were so focused on following a structured training plan, that included clocking up a set number of miles per week.
Now with the pause in the racing calendar, improving over these shorter distances is risk-free, you are not missing any racing opportunities and it will lead to tastier times.
Inevitably, when marathon season resumes again in 2021, you can start your build-up to a better position than ever before. You will feel sharper and happier.
Devise a programme that suits you or, if you are unsure, seek advice from someone you think could assist better. Most injuries occur from doing too much too fast, after doing too little for too long. Therefore, it is important to have a sensible approach to your training.
The intensity is higher over shorter distances so increase your stretching, activation work and strength work outside it. Everyone’s body is different, but focusing on sharper stuff will pay dividends for you as the weeks and months go on.
And if you want to run a marathon? That could still happen early next year. For now, though you should be enjoying what your doing and try to look for other ways to improve.
