Here are some practical ways to cope:
- Take time to be disappointed.
- Remember your “why”.
- Remember that running is a boost to your physical and mental health and is good for the immune system.
- If your race has been cancelled or postponed keep in the rhythm of your normal training cycle.
- Use this time to focus areas of weakness, in most cases this would mean more strength building sessions.
How to adjust your training:
- Keep running the normal number of days per week.
Staying in a consistent rhythm is very important during times of uncertainty. The same goes for strength training. Even if you can’t go to the gym look for workouts online that you can do at home. There’s a lot of great core and body work exercises you can be doing even if you don’t have weights or machines. Google and YouTube are your friends.
- Set yourself target workouts that you can redo in a month's time to see your progression. An example of this could be 8 x 1km efforts. The goal is to be 5 seconds per km faster.
- Invest in a Foot-Pod and Zwift and join an online community so you can be challenged with people around the world. While you’re at it, become a local Strava legend and take on some badges.
- If your marathon has been postponed 2+ months into the future or cancelled there’s no need to keep doing super long runs (over 25 kms) unless you want to.Many races are offering a virtual option so if you want to take part in that you’ll need to keep your training plan going as planned. Otherwise doing 5-10kms on your weekday runs and alternating between 12-20kms for long runs will keep you in good shape with the ability to jump into the last few weeks of a marathon plan when the social isolating has passed.
- Remember that your fitness level is not a waste.The physical and mental strength that you’ve built is a great resource during a time of stress. If you stay focused the extra weeks or months of training is only going to be of benefit to you with your running goals.
It can actually be a good thing to have extra weeks in your training cycle. This can be an opportunity to go into your race even more prepared. If your race has been moved weeks or months into the future you can restart a training plan the appropriate number of weeks out.
Let's be honest. How many times have we got to our taper week and wished we had trained more?
