Marathon Tips from Osteo Laura Pearce

It is no secret that running a marathon places a huge amount of strain on our bodies. Training, preparing and listening to your body is key in ensuring you get to the end of your 42km in one piece – mentally and physically! We asked our expert – Osteopath Dr Laura Pearce for her top tips! 

Melbourne Marathon Tips with Dr Laura Pearce

Marathons are extremely tough and exhausting on the body. You are putting yourself through metabolic fatigue (energy stores), environmental fatigue (climate), neurological (motor drive/motivation) and psychological fatigue (stress). Due to this, you must be well prepared in your training, the event day itself and your recovery process to get ready for whatever you have next.

In order to improve your performance and outcomes, you must overload your body for the adaptations and improvements to occur. The recovery phase in this must be a huge focus as well in order to prevent over-training and fatigue. This includes rest, nutrition and of course hydration. Know how much your body can take and gradually increase the load with rest allowing for these adaptations to occur. These are your running sets as well as strength and conditioning sets, which are imperative to your speed and power.

Ask the expert - Marathon Tips from Osteo Laura Pearce

De-loading before race day is essential. Smaller and slower runs are fine as well as massage or other physical therapy prior are great for releasing the muscles pre-race. This also includes foam rolling and mobility exercises. Start fuelling your body 48-hours before the race. This includes a high carbohydrate diet to store this in your muscles ready for use. For the morning of the race, make sure you eat at least 2.5hrs to 3hrs before the race as well as being prepared with fluids including a water and an electrolyte mix to assist with rehydrating fluids and electrolytes.

Post-race, have a high-GI sugary snack within the first 30 minutes. Then a protein, low GI meal 1-2 hours afterwards. If possible, a slow but active recovery can help your muscles recovery. This could include a walk around the finish line or even a  light jog to your mode of transport. And always allow rest for your body to restore all four fatigued systems and for adaptations to occur.

Good luck for your race day!

Ask the expert - Marathon Tips from Osteo Laura Pearce

Meet Dr Laura Pearce

Laura is the owner and founder of Back Into Osteopathy and head Osteopath.

Laura is a keen athlete herself as a triathlete in which she incorporates Strength & Conditioning principles to further increase speed, strength & power. With this knowledge and background, Laura has developed a passion for managing sporting injuries as well as educating and rehabilitating postural issues. She is proud of her understanding of the human anatomy and biomechanics and uses this knowledge to seek the cause of the initial complaint.

Laura’s holistic healthy-lifestyle approach to treatment and management seeks to achieve long-term results for her patients.

Editorial contribution by Active Feet & Dr Laura Pearce.

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