On 22 February, Jess attended a special London Marathon advice evening at St Clare Hospice and met with six of the runners that will be running on behalf of the charity.
The fundraising team at St Clare's announced that one of their runners, Ray Cogan, has not only taken on the challenge of running the London Marathon, but he has also pledged to do 13 races in 2018 to raise money for the hospice. [You can read Ray's story here].
Fortunately the St Clare runners are relatively injury-free at the moment, but that didn’t stop us from educating the runners on further injury prevention as the miles continue to increase.
In an open forum, we discussed the importance of hydration, rest and recovery. We stressed the fact that rest days are just as important as training days for the body to recover from the high amount of miles everyone is running.
We refreshed the idea of what a warm-up and cool down include, and most importantly, we discussed what to do if a niggle isn’t going away.
We also talked about training in general. We touched on how important it is to have a plan to follow, but also how to adjust it if needed.
We emphasised the need to practice your routine; practice what you will eat before and during the race, hydration during the race, what you will wear so you’re not surprised with chaffing or rubbing of clothes and your morning routine before the race.
We wish all the runners the best in their training and look forward to seeing them on race day!
Our next event with Saint Clare Hospice is attending their annual 10km race on 8 April, which starts from the front door of the hospice. We will be on-site providing pre and post race treatments for a donation, with 100% of the proceeds going to the hospice. We hope to see many of you there!