Dublin city marathon

tony stark

Hi
Just started training for my first marathon in October coming. I play a lot of competitive badminton three times a week on average. Ill be stopping for July/August but will need to play September and first three weeks of October. So I'll have a rest from badminton the week before the marathon. How will this affect my marathon. Really dont want to injure my legs. I'm I being stupid or am I over stressing? Adivice badly needed. Thanks

RayCun

Your legs are going to be tired through September and October, which will hurt your badminton, and playing badminton has a fairly high risk of going over on your ankle or overstretching, which will hurt your marathon...

EauRouge79

Agree with Ray.
You need to get your longs run in, September and first half of October. You need to work out a plan that allows you to recover from your competitive matches and those longs runs.
If you can manage the balancing act, I would suggest that protein shakes/recovery drinks will benefit the legs....+ plenty of early nights.

Clearlier

What do you want to get out of the marathon/why do you want to do it?

How much damage to your badminton game are you prepared to endure?

I imagine that playing competitive badminton will mean that your core strength should be reasonable?

A badminton player running shouldn't be too concerned about going over on their ankle. It shouldn't be any more likely than it is when just playing badminton although the disappointment if you were to hurt yourself would be greater. A runner taking up badminton on the other hand....

The difficulty that you'll have is that as a badminton player you'll have been training your fast twitch fibres. As a runner you need to be working on your endurance which will train your slow twitch fibres. You'll also find that you lose a little bit of your speed and explosiveness on the badminton court as your endurance training will also affect your fast twitch fibres teaching them to take on the characteristics of slow twitch ones.

The net result of this is that you won't run your best marathon (you need to train over a longer period and would be building your mileage over a year or two while improving your results at shorter distances) and that it will have a negative (but temporary) impact on your badminton. That bring us back to my first question; why do you want to do it?

tony stark

Partly because I'm running for a charity and partly for the achievement of it. I've started running about two months ago. Ran a 10km and really enjoyed it so thought I might enjoy more. I'll be away in July/August in Malaysia so I'll have to train over there. At least I won't be playing badminton over there! I should be able to cut the badminton back to twice a week in September/October to help with the marathon. This advice is great thanks by the way! Any advice on recovery strategies/ nutrition?

Satanta

Good luck training in Malaysia. I couldn't even manage playing golf when I was there!

Rocket Science

Best of luck to you in Dublin. I have run a few marathons and just would not have managed anything else in the weeks leading up to it with the long runs. It is good that the badminton is not crucial during September & October.

Clearlier

tony stark wrote: »

Partly because I'm running for a charity and partly for the achievement of it. I've started running about two months ago. Ran a 10km and really enjoyed it so thought I might enjoy more. I'll be away in July/August in Malaysia so I'll have to train over there. At least I won't be playing badminton over there! I should be able to cut the badminton back to twice a week in September/October to help with the marathon. This advice is great thanks by the way! Any advice on recovery strategies/ nutrition?

Eat high quality food. It'll fuel you better and stop your recovery from taking longer than it should do. Do at least one training run using the gel/food that you plan to carry around the marathon with you. Get enough sleep!