Crunch Time

Those of us that are going to Walt DisneyWorld in January for the half marathon, full marathon or the Goofy Challenge are now within 7 weeks. It's down to crunch time. By now you should have all your equipment choices picked and ready to go. Especially shoes, don't plan on hoping to find the perfect shoes at the Expo the day before.

Right now your training should be going good and you should be injury free. The last three weeks are your taper period so you really have only 4 weeks of LSD and hard training. So you should be nearing the end of whatever training plan you have been following.

WHAT!!! You haven't been following a training plan and have been just going at it in a hit or miss, mostly miss schedule? What the heck are you going to do?

Well if you are injured, deal with that first. You will not want to be already hurting when you are in the corral waiting to start. Fixing whatever injuries you might have are the most important thing you can do right now. You can always do activities that don't stress your injury while you rehab it. Biking, swimming and pool running are good ways to train while your rehabbing that injury.

Training plans are ideal and if you can the best way to train for finishing a long distance event. But life has a way of slapping down our best laid plans. So what do you do if your now 7 weeks away and haven't been following a good plan? This advice is for my walkers and run/walkers. A runner who is planning to run 26.2 miles and hasn't trained might want to consider walking or at most alternating running with long walk intervals.

A walker who is in overall good shape can finish a marathon. If your training hasn't been the best this year now is the time to start doing EVERYTHING right. Start eating properly and see if you can drop a few of those extra fluff pounds you have been thinking about losing. Get serious about your stretching. Loose muscles do everything better.

Training when you are playing catch up needs to be different from a what you would do in a 6 month plan. To start with train for time not distance. You need to train your body to stay in motion for 3 to 6 miles one day and if your doing Goofy you need to be able to handle 10 hours motion over two days. You can do that. Don't worry about speed worry about your endurance. You need to be able to stay in motion, your training to finish not win. If you have an hour, walk a brisk hour a day, if you have 3, 4 or 5 hours on the weekend then get out there and walk.

You don't need 3 weeks to taper if you've only trained a month. You need to keep walking regularly right up to the last few days. Two days of rest will do wonders for you, especially if it's active rest like enjoying the Disney Parks.

Time is running out but there is still a good chance to finish your events with last minute preparing, if you do it properly.

Thanks for reading.

Rambling Panda