I appropriately enough saw this tweet about a week before running a marathon:
Question for marathon veterans: How many of you run (2-3 miles) day before? Or do you prefer to rest?
It’s funny because my normal response is a bit different than my plan this weekend, as the day before one of my marathons I’ll be going out for not just 2 to 3 miles but for a full 28 miles or so, maybe a bit more.
But, here’s what I would do and what I tend to recommend others do when they are only running one marathon in a single weekend:
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Transcript
Do you run the day before your marathon, or do you take a rest day?
For me personally, that’s a pretty straightforward question. If at all possible, I try to get in just a short easy run of maybe 20-25 minutes or so at a very slow pace, just to stretch the legs out a little bit and to keep me from getting too stiff on race morning.
Now once I do my warm up on race morning I’d probably be okay anyway, so it’s not that big of a deal.
But my general theory is that before a football game or basketball game, those players are practicing. So before a marathon, why wouldn’t I be? I tend to be a little bit stiffer and it takes me a little bit longer to warm up in the morning if I haven’t run the day before.
If I’m able to manage it that way, then what I will do is take a rest day where I don’t run two days before and use that for my travel days if at all possible. Now if I’m flying in the day before a marathon, then obviously I’m not going to have much of an opportunity to get in a good run beforehand, depending on what time my flight gets in and other details, so I am pretty flexible.
My recommendation in general is if you can get out for a couple of easy miles just remember, keep it slow, just stretch out your legs, and don’t do anything dumb the day before your big race.
I hope you’ve found this tip useful, and I will see you in the next video.
What’s your “day before the marathon” race strategy? Do you run? Leave a comment below and let me know.
(Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – Photo Credit: Andrew Dickerman)
Interesting question and the answer is yes and no in my opinion. If you are a fast low km’s runner steping up to the Marathon then you should not only not run the day before but keep off your feet as much as posible. Forget about a run the day before I was worried about the warm up before a Marathon taking the distance to 43 or 44 kms! However some of my running friends are ultra marathon runners often doing 100km to 200km+ races. They also run marathons and a run the day before is nothing to them, they probably run from home to the start of a marathon! Of course if you a between these then you might not be sure….
It’s not always possible, but I prefer a short run the day before a marathon. A normal midweek day would be a 90 minute run; the day before a marathon I might do 45 minutes with some easy speed.
Where is your double marathon report?……I am sure everyone is waiting for it…I know I am.
Kevin, I’ll have the New Hampshire report up tomorrow morning, probably (uploading the video now) -- I still need to record the rest of it. Between yesterday’s nap and just being busy all day today I haven’t had a chance to put it all together yet.