Efficient training for a marathon (for someone injury prone)

2 Wheels Good

Hi, I'm training for a marathon and having a tendency to injure myself I'm trying to train as efficiently as possible to reduce the risk of injury. So I don't want to do too many long runs. I cycle as well so stamina isn't a major issue (I know they use different muscles etc).
Any tips, interval/Fartlek worth focusing on instead of 15 milers etc?
thanks

RayCun

What kind of running are you doing now?

(I have to say, the first thing I thought was "If you don't want to do long runs because of the risk of injury, why are you running a marathon?")

Sport101

You could try aquarunning. I have to warn you though, its more boring than religion class in school on a warm friday afternoon.

joconnell

Chi running too - arsey name but it's all based on being as lazy as possible and aligning your skeleton to take as much of your weight as possible to keep your muscles fresh and use less energy. Catherina McKiernan apparently retired from running through injury but started back with this method and does about 10 miles a day no problems. Gonna do the course myself some stage mid august.

r0nanf

ChiRunning ftw. I did the course with Catherina in June and it's made a big difference to me already. Far less impact on the legs and I'm definitely using less energy, especially on uphills. I'd definitely look it up if you're prone to injury - everybody on the course had suffered or were suffering some form of injury.

macinalli

+1 for the chi-running. I used to pick up lots of calf injuries but it seems that it was mainly due to poor running form, which Caitriona helped me to correct. The course might seem expensive but I haven't had a problem since I did the course 18 months ago (touch wood!) and have probably saved a fortune on physio bills

r0nanf

macinalli wrote: »

and have probably saved a fortune on physio bills

Exactly - the €150 or whatever for chirunning is really good value when you think of the amount of physio/acu or whatever that you avoid. To get instruction from someone of her caliber for that price is great imo

joconnell

Great to hear folks - just curious, since it's over the course of one day only did you find that the steps you needed to take were handy enough to build up consciously? I've looked into it quite a bit and it seems like the type of thing you'd spend a bit of time each day working on going from smaller aspects up to full running. Did you find you just fall into it right away after the course?

I was quoted €150 for the course in case anyone's interested too.

kennyb3

Good thread and thanks for the suggestions. I think the expression - ' If i was a horse they'd put me down' has been used a few times about me - always bloody injured, so will consider this at some stage

r0nanf

joconnell wrote: »

Great to hear folks - just curious, since it's over the course of one day only did you find that the steps you needed to take were handy enough to build up consciously?

Yeah it's very easy to apply the form focuses once they're learned, I was lucky in that my posture wasn't miles off to start with so the changes were subtle. Now when I go out to run I just take a minute to get myself in alignment and off I go - you do have to keep checking your form as you go as until your core strength is built up you will lose focus along your run.

I've found it very beneficial without it being a major overhaul of my technique. I'm reading the book now too and starting to do some more strengthening exercises which should help.

joconnell

Cheers Ronan. Place booked so!

heffsarmy

If you build up the long runs slowly you will avoid injury, you can do a marathon off short runs 10miles etc, but you will probably end up getting injured. Do half a marathon instead and enjoy it, whats the point in killing yourself on the day if you have'nt trained properly.

macinalli

joconnell wrote: »

did you find that the steps you needed to take were handy enough to build up consciously?

I found it difficult and it took a lot of self-discipline. In effect I'd spend years learning to run badly and you can't change that overnight. I'd say that for the first month afterwards I spent most of my time concentrating on how my feet were hitting the ground, and not paying any attention to speed, distance etc. After that it starts to become more natural and didn't need much watching

2 Wheels Good

RayCun wrote: »

What kind of running are you doing now?

(I have to say, the first thing I thought was "If you don't want to do long runs because of the risk of injury, why are you running a marathon?")

I'm doing mainly 5k to 10ks, have done a few 8 to 10 miles. Doing Gaelforce in August so building for that. But want to build up to doing a full marathon as well.
Might look at the Chi running as well, and maybe get a detailed Gait analysis done.

RayCun

pat_hurley@yaho wrote: »

But want to build up to doing a full marathon as well.

The thing is, the long runs in a standard marathon training programme do carry some injury risk.
But probably not as much risk as going out and running a marathon without building up to it with long runs. The long training runs build up your body, get it ready for the strains of the marathon.

ecoli

Have you thought about going to a physio to get to the root of the problem of your injuries. Could be your biomechanics and they may be able to get to the root of the problem and fix it at its origin and could benefit you in the long run

2 Wheels Good

I'll just try and get a good balance for my training, might try and find some long runs on grass too to reduce impact and will check out the chi running