With my second marathon four sleeps away I am very pleased to say I’ve had an injury-free training cycle. *knock on wood*

I’ve had quite a few random injuries before with the most notable one being a torn tendon in my foot that happened at mile 24 of the Portland marathon in 2010. I had to take six weeks off running after that. You can read more about how that injury came about here and how I recovered from it here.

When I say injury free, I mean I didn’t have anything wrong with me that caused me pain on consecutive runs. Yes, a run here and there I would feel a bit achey or sore. And I had that one run where my calf tightened up significantly afterwards. But I never had an ache, pain or tweak that lasted more than part of a run, or one run. I find this post on Healthy Tipping Point VERY useful when it comes to telling whether something is a normal pain associated with training or whether it’s an impending injury. I especially like her normal = “I just ran 10 miles and my feet hurt” vs. injury = “I ran two steps and now my ankle is screaming” analogy.

I have been thinking about this a lot this training cycle. What did I do different? How did I manage to run fairly high-mileage (I ran 133.8 miles in April) and stay completely injury free for four months? Can I do this again?

I think a lot of things are important when it comes to injury prevention: cross-training, stretching or yoga, foam rolling, icing, listening to your body, massage and ART treatments at the chiropractor. but I believe there are three key things I did differently from my last training cycle that kept me from getting injured:

1. Building a Base

For the first six weeks I ran four easy runs a week (many in the snow in January and February!) That’s it, that’s all. No focused workouts or speed workouts.  We did 10 and 1′s (10 minutes running and 1 minute walking) for all these runs. I can remember complaining to a friend in my running group that I was getting bored of running so slowly and I wanted to do some more focused workouts. Looking back now, I think building this base was key for not getting injured later when we did add in the hill repeats and track workouts.

2. Running my Long Runs SLOWLY 

It is called a LSD (long, slow, distance) run for a reason! My last marathon training cycle I ran 15 miles (25 km) with a 6:14 min/km (10:00/mile) pace halfway through the training cycle. Shortly afterwards my injuries started popping up. Why? Because that pace was way too fast for me to do on a training run. This cycle I really took the slow part of long runs to heart. I did 10 and 1′s or 9 and 1′s for ALL my long runs and on my five big runs I kept the pace between 10:43/mile (6:39/km) and 11:06/mile (6:53/km) which is perfect for the approx. 10:00/mile (6:14/km) I’m hoping to average in the marathon.

I’ve read and heard that running too fast is the quickest way to get injured so I think of all the things I did differently this has been the most important for staying injury free.

3. A Regular Yoga Practice

I did yoga my last training cycle but more like once a week, if that. This time around I kept going to yoga consistently 2-3 times per week. Even though my strength training and spinning was pathetic still (despite intentions to be better) I kept up a solid yoga practice. The kind of yoga I do is so much more than just stretching. It involves a lot of strength work, especially core and leg strength, which I think has had a really positive effect on my running.

I think that it’s also important to note that the one time I felt anything even close to an injury (when my calf tightened up significantly after our first track workout) I immediately took action to remedy it and went to the chiropractor the very next day. Luckily, it just took one ART treatment and I was back to 100%. I’m so glad I acted quickly on that.

And that’s that. Obviously I am not a professional in any way shape or form. These are just some things that I think helped keep me injury free.

I should also note that when I went for a massage on Monday and mentioned the lower back pain I frequently have she said I need to strengthen my glutes because I’m using my lower back more than I should be when running. So building strength through more yoga and strength training will be a big focus for me this summer.

Do you have any tips for staying injury free during a training cycle? I hope everyone who is running Vancouver this weekend had as good of a training cycle as I did!

Running is a pretty basic sport. Truly all you need is a pair of shoes and you can go. However, there are definitely some things that can make it a lot more enjoyable. I thought I’d share a few of the things I found invaluable during this training cycle!

Unless otherwise stated all of the things below were bought with my own money and the opinions truly are my own!

My Lulu Gloves

I got these on sale at the factory outlet last fall and considering I did the majority of my training during cold winter months they have been invaluable to me. The mitten part flips off if I want to make them into just gloves and they have little holes in the thumb and index finger for when my hands get hot. These gloves have been on many, many runs with me this training cycle!

My Headsweat 26.2 Hat 

I actually won this hat in a giveaway on Aron‘s blog and I LOVE it. I’ve basically ditched all my other running hats for this one. It fits so comfortably and doesn’t even feel like you are wearing a hat. I will be purchasing another one soon.

My Handheld Water Bottle

Another item I won in that blog giveaway from Aron and have fallen in love with! Water belts never really work for me, I haven’t been able to find one that fits well, but I love carrying a handheld. I  have used this water bottle for runs up to 2 hours before and it works great. For the most part I only use it for runs that are 1:30 or less, though.

My Camelbak

I bought a new camelbak in February when our runs got into the 14+ miles range. It was expensive ($70 from the Running Room) but so worth it. It’s a really nice camelbak that fits me well and doesn’t rub anywhere. It also holds 2 L of water which was necessary, I’ve completely drained it on more than one run this training cycle!

My Garmin! 

I by no means think a Garmin is necessary for running or training for races and I actually ran without one for 5 weeks this training cycle because this happened. I also trained for my first two half-marathons without a Garmin. However, I will say that they are really nice little gadgets to have. I love throwing on my Garmin and just going for a run and not having to map out a route ahead of time or anything. Even though I missed my 305 when it was first chewed up I really do love my new 110 Garmin and how much sleeker it is.

My Asics! 

Anytime a new runner emails me asking for advice I tell them to get fitted for a good pair of shoes. Having good shoes is so, so important for running! I have been running in Asics for the past three years and I love them. I ran in the Kayano’s for a few years and then went to the GT-2160′s at the beginning of 2011 and recently went back to the Kayano’s this training cycle because I got two pairs on sale. Shoes that fit you properly and feel good make such a huge difference when it comes to training!

My iPhone! 

Like I said above, I don’t think a Garmin is a necessity and when Chloe chewed my 305 I didn’t have the cash on hand to replace it immediately. Enter the Runkeeper app – a free iPhone app that tracked my runs just as accurately as a Garmin! I used that app for 5 weeks before replacing my Garmin. I also used my iPhone a lot to listen to music this training cycle and, of course, for encouragement in the form of tweets or texts when I was having a hard long run.

A few things that I also loved that I neglected to mention so far? Clif shot bloks, chocolate flavoured GU, blue gatorade, body glide, Nike Tempo Shorts, my spibelt and lip chap.

What are your training must-haves?

Training so far:

• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 1
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 2
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 3
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 4
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 5
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 6
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 7
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 8
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 9
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 10
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 11
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 12
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 13
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 14
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 15
• Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 16 

It’s RACE WEEK! In honour of race week I have running themed posts going up all week long But for now, let’s take a look at my second last week of training shall we?

After the last runner came through and we cleaned up our station I set out for a run with one of the guys from my training group. We ran at a really easy pace and just chatted the whole time about our training and upcoming marathon! I just ran in my cotton volunteer shirt since I figured 4 miles was no big deal but it was HOT out there though. I think I was just so pumped from watching all the half-marathoners come through that it seemed like a great run

6 sleeps until race day!!!!!!

Miles/Km ran last week: 21.3 miles / 34.3 km

Training-to-date mileage: 461.1 miles / 741.35 km

Yoga: 135 minutes

Strength Training: 0 minutes

Cycling/Spinning: 0 minutes

Thoughts:

It was a good week! I was hoping to feel more energized on my runs then I did, though. I felt kind of sluggish. Hopefully if I rest lots this week I will feel better on my runs. Don’t really want to start the marathon off feeling sluggish!

At this point I can’t really do anything other than eat well, drink lots of water and sleep lots. I can’t really improve on my training by this point but I CAN ruin it by not taking proper care of myself this week. I will go to a couple yoga classes and run at least 2-3 times before the marathon but for the most part I will be resting and hydrating!

Question of the day: Have you ever volunteered at a race before? Did you enjoy it? I can’t wait to volunteer at more!!