Thought you might find it interesting!

Enjoy and pass it on!

I’m not a doctor or pharmacist so I’m in no position to talk with authority about this, but I thought as some of you are endurance athletes, you might be interested.  Please discuss this with someone medically-trained if you’re concerned or have questions.

What we all know is that NSAIDs are often prescribed for inflammation: “to get the swelling down”,  “to get rid of the inflammation” as well as “to get rid of the pain”.  When you know that prolonged exercise causes inflammation and pain in muscles, it would seem to make sense to use a drug that deals with those things to reduce your symptoms… or to prevent them occuring in the first place. I know of many athletes who have swallowed a couple of Nurofen before a big event to stave off the pain they know is coming.

BUT.  Evidence shows it’s not a good idea.

Before examining why this may be, a quick explanation of the inflammation process might be useful.

The inflammation response is your body’s highly effective automatic response to trauma such as sprains, cuts, muscle tears, abrasions, fractures, infections etc. It kicks in instantly and over the next 36-48 hours (or possibly longer)  helps your body to deal with the trauma and start the healing process, including stopping any bleeding.  Specifically it causes swelling (fluid leaking out of damaged cells and extra chemicals brought to the area), heat (extra blood flow and increased metabolic activity), redness (extra blood flow) and pain (all that extra fluid and damaged tissue pressing on pain nerve endings). So all the symptoms of inflammation are features of the healing process and  completely normal and useful.

So why might it not be useful to use NSAIDs while undertaking endurance activity?

There are several reasons, all of which are discussed in the link to a Runners World online forum thread on the topic which I’ll put  at the end of this post.  The link is to the Runners World thread and includes related comments from runners and triathletes. Additional (and more recent) research published in Science Tranlational Medecine on 1 Feb 2012 also provides good insight – I’ve included a link to this, too, as reported in the New York Times. If you google something like ‘endurance training NSAIDs’ you’ll get a wealth of other info on the topic.

However, the highlights are as follows:

• NSAIDs, being anti-inflammatory, are said to interfere with the inflammation process.  So if your muscles are newly damaged, or are still being damaged because you are still running/cycling etc, popping a Nurofen hinders their healing process.
• According to the studies in the RW/New York Times article, the NSAIDs didn’t decrease the pain experienced by ultra long distance runners.
• NSAIDs can interfere with kidney function.  When you consider how crucial hydration and electrolyte balance is during endurance exercise – especially on a hot day – anything that interferes with the kidneys (which regulate the body’s hydration and electrolytes) is definitely not what you want.
• NSAIDs may actually hinder healing, although they reduce inflammation.

So what does this mean to endurance athletes?

I think it means you should read up on ibuprofen, pain and understand what you are doing if you take pain killers during exercise so that you can make an informed, sensible decision, based on factors such as why you think you need to, the temperature, how long you’ll be exercising for etc.

I think it means you should think twice before taking Nurofen or ibuprofen for pain when exercising (I take paracetamol if I have to, but I’m not telling you to do the same).

I think it means that when you do long distance events, you need to accept that pain can be part of the picture and you need to know whether that pain is acceptible discomfort or whether it’s an injury that needs urgent attention.  Masking either as a matter of course may not be helpful.

One question you might be asking: if NSAIDs are so bad, why are they on sale as over the counter painkillers?  My understanding is (and please remember that I’m not a medic) that once that initial 48-72 hour phase of the inflammation process is over in an acute situation, the swelling, redness and heat should naturally be reducing and are no longer desirable or as useful as they were initially and therefore, anti-inflammatory drugs are appropriate.   Similarly, if there is a chronic inflammatory situation (eg a tenditis or tendinopathy which has been going on for several weeks) anti-flammatory drugs can be useful to break the cycle of inflammation and re-inflammation.

So – if any of you are about to do a spring marathon in the next week or so… do read up on taking anti-inflammatories and consider whether they’re the best thing for you.

Link to Runners World thread

Link to New York Times article about Science Tranlational Medecine research from Feb 2012

Other related links:

About.com – sports medicine link

Endurance Corner: Think Twice about NSAIDS – this highlights a possible link to cardiac issues. This one gets a bit technical, but it’s actually quite easy to read. If you scan down the page, however, you can skip to the heading which relates to endurance athletes.

That’s it.  Except people don’t or can’t do this properly.  And it takes its toll – so please, please, please promise you’ll do the following after your big race.  (As it’s spring marathon season, we’ll base it on a marathon, but the principles are the same for all long A races where you’ve held nothing back.)

1.  Congratulate yourself

However you feel about your race, whether you got the PB/qualification/time, recognise that you worked hard and put your body through a lot to get to the start line. That takes commitment, focus, guts, time and effort.  Go you!  If you need to do post-race post-mortems (if you know what I mean) save it for a few days so you have gained some perspective and can evaluate it all objectively. Right now – celebrate and congratulate yourself.

2. Immediately post-race…

I won’t go into this too much because there’s stacks of advice out there.  Walking around is good to help start the recovery process. Getting some food (ideally protein:carb in a 1:4 ratio) inside you as soon as you can stomach it.  Energy drink would do if you can’t face food. (However, from personal post-ironman experience I know that if you don’t feel like food, there’s no way you can eat.  I can’t help feeling that if you feel sick your body can’t cope with food right then, so there’s no point in stressing it more.  But I’d still try to get some water down.) Shower, clean clothes asap. Proper meal, don’t go mad on the booze. Get an early night – but you might not sleep much.

3.  Next day: do nothing. 

‘Resting’ means different things for different people, but for all of us the physiological damage is the same. Your body needs time to repair and recover. It won’t recover if you keep exercising.  I know I recover slowly and have no problem doing nothing except walking (ambling) for a week. However, I always make sure I do something the day after. Slow walking is good. So’s gentle swimming – lovely, supported, impact-free movement to get your muscles working gently to help them clear out the by-products of intense, prolonged exercise and flood them with the nutrients they need for repair.  And I say repair, because they are broken. There is carnage in your muscles in the day or two after a big effort.  So the exercise has to be gentle enough to help, not to hinder. A gentle, flat, no-effort bike ride is great too. But no hills!  And no running.  Running is so hard on your joints, connective tissues, muscles. There are good reasons for doing recovery runs during the training process if your body can cope, but post race you’ve nothing to lose by not running.

If you’ve got to go to work the day after – just negotiating the walk to and from the car, station, stairs etc might be enough!  But get out for a walk at lunch time.  And if you’re sedentary, get up to walk around and stretch frequently so you don’t stiffen up too much.  Because if you think you were stiff this morning…

4. Two days later…

… wait until you get out of bed today! It’ll probably be even worse! DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) takes 36-48 hours to peak, which is why you might feel worse today.  It’s also a very good reason for not leaping into your trainers for a ‘recovery’ run.  Working  muscles when they’re tired and damaged is more likely to delay repair and cause more damage.  Researchers still haven’t decided for certain what causes DOMS. But athletes know what it feels like.

Also, you still might be dehydrated so continue to drink water regularly and eat good food.  Good quality protein will help the repair process.

5.  And for the rest of the first week…

Set against my comment that a bit of gentle active recovery helps, there’s various slightly conflicting bits of research out there. When I find the sources again, I’ll blog them. But Runners World once reported a research project which did daily muscle biopsies on two groups of well-trained athletes who had cycled to failure (ie until they could do no more) under lab conditions. One group then did very gentle exercise for the next week, gradually increasing the effort.  I can’t remember the details, but at the end of two weeks they weren’t back exercising anywhere near full tilt – it was still all within ‘active recovery’ guidelines. The second group did no exercise at all for two weeks.  The muscles of the group that had done nothing were more recovered after both one and two weeks.  So the message looks clear, whether you’re an active recovery person or a ‘thank goodness I don’t have to run today’ person – going easy, to the point of laziness for up to two weeks does no harm at all after a huge effort.

You have to give your body a chance to do what it does best. It knows how to look after itself – all you have to do is give it a chance to do its thing.

Massage helps – at the right time

On that theme, I can’t help thinking that, because your body has been through a huge trauma while racing, it’s best to leave it to its own devices for a couple of days afterwards.  The chances are you’d be too sore for any meaningful massage, anyway.  Also it might be hard to tell the difference between normal post-race soreness and fatigue and real injury which would be harmed by massage.

Having said that, the more used to massage you are and the more used you are to hard endurance efforts, the better you would tolerate a massage relatively soon after finishing.  However, dehydration and muscle damage are an issue which is why I think some gentle activity to get some fresh blood into the muscles is the best approach in the two days post-race.

So any time from say the Wednesday after a Sunday race  onwards would be good time for massage.   The worst of the DOMS will have died down and the massage will help flush out the by-products of the damage and  recovery processes. It should be light and involve lots of effleurage (stroking techniques to boost circulation and help the lymphatic system), and possibly some stretching techniques, too, depending on how you feel.

And getting back into training

Don’t be in any hurry, certainly for the first week or two.  If after a week you really feel the need to run – run. But be nice to yourself and run off road, not too fast or too far. Many coaches advocate a reverse taper back into training – this seems sensible to me as long as no one feels pressured to do more than they feel like doing before they’re ready to.  Don’t forget you need to be ready for it mentally as well as physically.

And physically, just because the initial stiffness and soreness has gone, it doesn’t mean you are bionic and are recovered. It can take up to two weeks just for post-race injuries to emerge, and up to a month or six weeks even to recover properly from a marathon. Upto three (even six) months for recovery from an ironman.  You have to respect what your bodies been through and give it a chance to mend. Even if you’re no longer achey, the muscle energy delivery systems can take a month to recover.  I’ve even heard that there’s neural damage that needs to heal – but I know little about this at this stage.  The thing is, you won’t know you’re not recovered until you go out and do a hard effort too soon and you underperform or, worse, get injured.

It’s much better, surely, to give yourself a proper break, come back refreshed and perhaps capitalise on all that training by delivering an outstanding performance six weeks after your marathon? That’d be a good reward for being patient!

It was 60 miles into a 75 mile sportive. I was going slowish, on the flat, and luckly no one around me, either on a bike or in a vehicle.  I caught a pothole at the edge of the road (I think). I don’t know if I managed to try to do anything about it or not because I was on the ground so quickly I don’t even remember falling.

I felt ok, had a quick look behind to see if I was about to be run over then realised my elbow and hip/thigh hurt a lot and my jersey and glove were torn.

To cut a long story short I got back to my car with some road rash and swelling on the flat part of my forearm near my elbow and what I think is slightly more ominous soreness and swelling to my vastus lateralis (outside quad muscle) – but no obvious bruising – or very little anyway.  I think it’s a bit ominous because what it looks like doesn’t seem to warrant the amount of pain it gives.

I’m feeling lucky because

• I’m not seriously hurt
• my bike’s not hurt at all
• I didn’t pull down anyone else with me
• there was no traffic about
• I could so easily have injured myself so much more badly – imagine if the angle of my arm had been different. I might have broken a wrist, collar bone or elbow. Doesn’t bear thinking about.  Any of those things would make massaging difficult – and could have been the end of my ironman
• I’m on an easy week this week after a block of heavy training so I can be nice to myself and make sure there’s no real damage to my quad.

So I think I’ve got away with it!

But it made me think.  We are on a knife edge sometimes with our training, balancing between fit and fabulous and injured and fed up.  All we can do is be sensible, take all the precautions we can, then celebrate our health and achievement.  It’s easy to have a moan and feel sorry for ourselves when we’re injured or are worried about a niggle, but we forget to revel in our health and strength when all’s well.  So sorry if I’m going all Pollyanna on you – but I’m going to remember to count my training blessings a bit more often.

Training’s going well.  The only blip was a horrid virus that had me off training for the best part of a week in February, but conveniently that was a knock back week so I wasn’t too worried.

At the moment we’re having an amazing few days of sunny, mild March weather which makes training all the more pleasant (except swimming inside, but we can’t have it all!).  I’m feeling relatively strong – perhaps the effects of the Lanzarote training camp are kicking in – and, even more crucial, I’m feeling positive mentally and am enjoying the training. I know this can change when I go through the odd week or two when I’m really tired, so I’m relishing it while I can. (Obviously I try to avoid being really tired – you can’t do good quality training if you’re too knackered.)

The challenge at the moment is fitting it all in.  The massage clinic is busy busy busy as spring marathons approach and runners are in their heaviest mileage period – but it’s a nice problem to have.   I’m trying to fit in an extra swim each week (was told off by the coaches in Lanzarote…) and, the biggest challenge of all, a gym session.

For over two years now I’ve done a weekly pilates session which has been instrumental, I think, to my ability to train consistently and pretty much injury-free. In addition, for the last 18 months I’ve been helping to instruct a weekly strength and conditioning class for fellow WADAC members, so that’s given me a second hour of core and run-focussed strength work. But I haven’t done much actual gym/weights stuff for years. So, wanting to do something extra for this year’s ironman training, triathlon-specific weight training entered my life back in September last year.

I’m a big believer in periodisation, soI did two or three sessions a week from September to December – before ironman training proper started – building up gradually to the point where I was maxing out for two sets of six reps.  The idea was that that would give me more muscle to train with when Outlaw training. When ironman training started in January I cut it down to two sessions a week, but now it’s down to one.

The books (mainly anything by Joe Friel and/or Gordo Byrne) say this is fine. I understand that younger, particularly male, athletes can get away with little or no weight training once they’ve built up during the off season. But we older and female athletes need to keep it up the whole time to maintain the benefits (we don’t have enough testosterone!).

At first I worried about when  to do a weights session during an already packed week.   I was worried about my legs being too wrecked to run or bike usefully afterwards – or vice versa. If I went to the gym on an easy training/recovery day, surely that turned the easy day into a hard training day with no recovery? But in the end I stopped worrying and just got on with it.  I think it’s all working out.  But I suppose I won’t really know until 1st July, will I?

Focussed mainly on marathons, it’s about 1hr15 long and covers world marathon news, interviews, training info and regular features from the brilliant Tony Audenshaw (plays someone in Emmerdale…).  The interactivity with their audience is immense with weekly rants and raves, winner of the week, who’s done the fastest marathon that week (among listeners) etc etc.

Anyone who’s interested in marathons, whether they’re contemplating their first one or signing up to their 50th, will get something from Marathon Talk.  I think it should be compulsory listening!  And, if you like it, you can download the entire back catalogue of  past episodes – for free, of course.  That’d keep you going on long runs for a year.

I personally get a lot out of their training features and because they’re well-connected in the running and sports science world, they have access to some fantastically insightful people.  Memorable ones for me have been about run/walking marathons, caffeine, Comrades (I even went to another lecture by the brilliant interviewee, Comrades legend Bruce Fordyce on the back of his Marathon Talk interview – might even have to do the race one day!) and Tim Noakes talking about the Central Governor theory (how it’s your brain that makes you stop when you’re tired, not your exhausted muscles).

They regularly organise mass participation events like the Magic Mile, Jantastic, Febulous and Marchvelous – all remote events that runners do on their own turf, then add onto the Marathon Talk website.  Great motivators.  They were also behind the marvellous RunforJapan that helped raise thousands for victims of the Japanese earthquake last year.

They do look at other endurance sports to a certain extent if it’s relevant to marathoning so ironman and ultra running are both featured from time to time.

Martin and Tom’s presentation and interviewing styles and skills have developed over the two years it’s been running.  They work brilliantly together and you can tell they’re good friends who have great respect both for each other, the sport and their audience.  Their audience, by the way, is global and covers first timers, 6 hr+ run/walkers, elites, and everyone in between.  Everyone is catered for and there is absolutely no condescension towards slower runners – it all feels very friendly.

The podcast’s free. You can download it from iTunes, from their website and through other channels if you don’t have an Apple mp3 player.

Visit www.marathontalk.com and give it a go.

It’s short and easy to read so do have a look.  It’s in Women’s Health magazine, but I’m sure it’s relevant to men, too.

For what it’s worth, I’m really making an effort not to drink much at the mo in the interests of losing weight and maximising my training for The Outlaw in July (ironman distance triathlon). So it’s nice to know the abstinence is worth it!

Women’s Health article.

Judging by the legs and the stories of a  few of my massage clients recently, people are definitely at the tricky stage of marathon training when you’re on that knife edge between being in the form of your life… and injury.  Sadly, quite a few people have slipped onto the wrong side.

So what can you do to make sure you increase your chances of staying on the ‘form of your life’ side of things?

1. Listen to your body. Take an extra rest day if you need to. It won’t kill you and might do you good. You may think this is boring and predictable,  but you ought to be tuned into your body well enough by now to be able to hear what it’s telling you. You probably know if you really are tired or just not feeling like running.  If you really ARE tired, miss a run or two.  If your body needs the rest and recuperation, it’ll bounce back stronger and all the better for the extra rest. If, on the other hand, you’re having an attack of the CBAs, the guilt or extra energy next time will make the next run a really good one.  If you’re not sure which of these you’re feeling – set off for your run and if, after 15 mins it’s really not happening, call it a day. The next day you will have had a bit of extra rest so if it was just extra rest you needed – job done.  If you were actually coming down with something, you’ll probably know.

2.  Be intelligent about your training programme (more on listening to your body). If you run long or race on Sunday, think twice about doing a hard session on Tuesday if you’re still feeling tired.  Most clubs and training plans seem to have a tough session on a Tuesday – but if you don’t feel recovered after your Sunday effort, consider having an extra rest day or easy day and delay your intervals until Wednesday.  Tired muscles are much more injury-prone. And if your legs are fresher, you’ll have a better session and get more of a training benefit. If your legs are still tired, you won’t get such a good session and will have delayed your recovery.  I know it means that means the rest of the week is thrown into disorganisation and you might be finding it tough to get all the runs in as it is.  But sticking to a plan that was designed for a broad range of people can’t possibly be perfect for each individual all the time, so you have to be prepared to move things around and be a bit flexible.  For many people, less is more. Some of my good friends run fast marathons and continue to improve on three runs a week, plus a couple of cross training sessions.  It won’t work for everyone but it shows that not everyone has to do high mileage to be successful. If you’re finding it hard to recover, you might just need to consider that you’re one of those people for whom less is more. Especially if it keeps you healthy and uninjured… and therefore able to train.

3.  Don’t be afraid of rest.  You don’t get fitter when you train – you get fitter when you recover from training.

4. Get lots of sleep. You know how much you need (everyone’s different) – so make sure you get that much, and a little bit more if possible.  During sleep we produce growth hormone, crucial for recovery and repair after training.

5. Eat really well. Make it your business to find out what a good diet is – there’s masses of advice and good websites out there.  But you know the basics, I’m sure: some carbs, a portion of good protein at every meal, lots of fresh fruit and veg etc. It’s not complicated – just try to eat food as unprocessed as possible. You don’t have to go mad, but alcohol isn’t great for your body, especially when it’s under stress from a huge training load on top of loads of training for the last few months.  And it can stop you sleeping properly. Drink plenty of water. Try not to eat lots of refined sugars when you’re hungry – it just gives you a sugar high, then a sugar low (ie you’re hungry again) is stressful for your body and not good for your immune system. And if you’re immune system’s compromised… you’re open to coughs, colds and all the other nasties going round.

6.  Work hard on your race AND TRAINING nutrition.  I’m talking in particular about making sure you get enough food before, during and immediately after your training sessions. You might be able to get through a 20 mile training run with only a bottle of water (of course you can – the body is an amazing machine) but consider how much good (or not) it’s doing your poor body while it’s trying to work so hard for you.  (Whether it’s a good idea to do the odd training run with no carb intake to help your body get used to metabolising fat is a topic I’m not qualified to argue about!). But for what it’s worth, I think it’s worth being well-fuelled before your training, important to fuel during your training (especially if you’re training for over an hour) and essential to refuel straightaway after your training.  That means within 20 mins of finishing you need to get some protein, carbs (protein:carbs = 1:4) and some water inside you. So, milk, chocolate milk or hot chocolate or recovery drink,  or water plus tuna sandwich, a yoghurt, hummus, eggs and toast, a bowl of cereal – lots of options. Your body is many times better at replenishing muscle and liver glycogen (ie muscle fuel) straight after you train  – I read somewhere that it’s 300 times better in the first 20 minutes).  Try to eat a proper meal within two hours.  There’s much more on recovery food/activities out there if you look.

7. Look after your immune system. That means good food, enough sleep, refuelling before, during and after training and avoiding germy places (supermarket trolley handles, PIN machines, schools, children etc!).  Wash your hands a lot. Your immune system is particularly compromised in the 36-48 hours post hard session. Minimise stress as much as possible – that means at work, at home, worrying about your marathon.  It’s hard to do all of this all the time, but if you do what you can to do most of it most of the time, you’re giving yourself a fighting chance.

8.  Think very carefully before racing anything longer than a half marathon within five weeks of your race.  We all know people who felt great four or five weeks out and ran a blinding 20 mile PB but then couldn’t  recover properly and didn’t hit their marathon target.  I personally would even worry about doing an all out half within five weeks because I think that might have had a bearing on my unhappy Florence marathon a few years ago.  But I know I don’t recover well, so need to be cautious.

9.  Don’t neglect your core strength and general strength and conditioning. Don’t neglect stretching.  Five weeks away from a marathon might be too late for that  race, but it’s never too late to get started for future races. Strength and conditioning is part of every elite athlete’s programme, so why would it not be important for non-professionals?  It’s no good having strong arms and legs if the frame on which they depend is weak or imbalanced.  We are only as strong as our weakest part. Make time for it. Weak glutes might lead to ITB problems. Tight hip flexors might lead to a hamstring strain. A foot problem might be directly related to a problem in the pelvis.

10.  And last but not least, I’ve held out long enough. Get lots of massage! Shameless self promotion, but only because I know it’s important and it works. Your muscles are working hard for you and don’t get a chance to recover. Regular massage can keep niggles and tightness in muscles and tendons under control – or can get rid of them. It  helps to keep your muscles in good condition. It helps you recover from one session so that you’re ready to go into the next.  But apart from the good a massage can do your muscles, consider the good it can do YOU.  If you’ve got a few worries or the odd niggle, it’s stressful – cue increases in cortisone levels and therefore stress – bad for your immune system. It’s awful worrying that a niggle is going to mean the end of your marathon – I know from experience!  But a  massage from a knowledgeable practitioner can put your mind at rest and reassure you.  You may just need some muscles releasing and stretching.  And they might be able to tell you what to do to avoid the same thing happening again. If you ought to see a physio, they’ll soon tell you.  Obviously a massage therapist is not the same as a physio so if there is something wrong, you need to see a physio. But a good massage can get rid of all sorts of tensions and niggles and get you back training.  No brainer, really.

All these things are interlinked so if you do the best you can with as many of them as you can, you should increase your chances of staying healthy.  Actually I keep thinking of other things to say (about tapering, not getting greedy about your training for eg) but will stop battering your senses now because this post has become much, much longer than I thought it would.

Do check out the validity of what I say with experts.  Of course there are as many theories as experts, but most people would at least agree with the most of principles I’ve covered.  I’d highly recommend reading some of Matt Dixon’s material on www.purplepatchfitness.com, and in particular this article about his principles from Running Times.

We talked about how you know if you’re peaking. I thought I’d share this with you because it encompasses elements that some of my massage clients and WADAC club members might find relevant.

So – how do you know if you’re peaking? Well, if you’re training for a specific endurance or ultra-endurance event, the training is long and tiring. Despite having rest days and recovery weeks, and despite resting, eating well to optimise recovery (and having lots of massage of course), we are still training on tired legs most of the time. I don’t know about you, but I long for a fresh pair of legs sometimes and to be able to stay awake past 9pm.

But, there comes a time, probably quite close to your event, possibly when you’ve started a two or three week taper, when you suddenly seem to be able to cope. You do a hard session and you cope with it well and feel ready for another one the next day. You hit all your target times/heart rates with relative ease. Your legs seem to be dealing with the load and start to feel good. You are a running/cycling/triathlon god/goddess.

Right. So what do you do next?

Do you think – great, I’m a training god/goddess, I can add more to my training to get even fitter?

Or do you think – great, I’m almost ready. This is a good sign. I’m starting to recover from the training. I want the recovery to continue so I’ll stick to the plan and not add in any more long, extra killer sessions just to make sure. I’ll trust in the training I’ve already done and know that I’m almost ready. I’ll stick to my plan and start doing shorter, more intense sessions to sharpen up before race day, while still relishing that extra recovery time.

Or – are you ages away from your target event, in which case you might be peaking too early?

I’m not setting out here to tell you how to peak or what peaking is. Your coach/training plan should have that covered for you.

What I’m urging is for you not to get greedy when it all starts to go right. More is not always better at the end of a training cycle. You don’t want to wreck all the good work you’ve done so far by going over the top and getting injured or over-trained right at the end. It’s better to arrive at the start line fresh and 5% undertrained than knackered, injured and 0.5% overtrained.

It’s easy to get greedy early on in a long training programme, too. We’re relatively fresh, feel good and feel we can do more. Alarm bells should ring! You’ve a long way to go and the build up needs to be gradual – especially for ultra endurance events like marathon, ironman and ultra running/cycling/swimming. Do too much too soon and your body’s not ready for it and you massively increase your chance of shin splints or other niggles now… and perhaps over-training and burn out later.

So – long live the taper. Let’s embrace the peak. And let’s not get greedy!