A rest day today - they may all be rest days until Sunday - but that doesn't mean we can't do a little marathon-related reading (and watching and listening.)
Let's start with a little shameless self-promotion: my column in the Spec on my goals for the marathon. I'm pretty happy with how this piece turned out, though I'm concerned it will seem dated five years from now with all the Sarah Palin references. Unless she's U.S. President by then.
The New York City marathon is taking place on Nov. 2 as well and the New York Times has some great stuff regarding the race. The Times does some wicked interactive web stuff and their route map is no exception. They've also got an interesting piece on how the swelling numbers of popular marathons is creating problems.
I've also started reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. I requested it from the public library - there was a waiting list - and through devine providence it arrived yesterday. It's quite good so far. It's a thoughtful book about the role of running in his life. His first marathon was an assignment from Runner's World magazine and he ran from Athens To Marathon - the original marathon route - by himself, not as part of any race. I can't find the original article - it's partially reprinted in the book - but here's the I'm A Runner feature from RW.
There's also a couple movies about running I want to see. Run For Your Life is a documentary about legendary New York Marathon race director Fred Lebow. And Run Fatboy Run is a romantic comedy about a guy who runs a marathon to win his fiancee back. It's directed by former Friends star David Schwimmer.
The weather for Sunday has changed again. It's still variable cloudiness but they are calling for a high of 13 degrees. That'd be shorts and t-shirt weather. Twenty per cent chance of rain and 20km/h winds from the southwest. According to RW, 13 degrees C or 55 degrees F is the perfect marathon running temperature.
Oh... One last thing that I forgot to mention.
If this is your first marathon and with it having a significant down hill component, if you haven't done so already, you'll want to trim your toe nails.
Why? Well, if your running shoes are not properly sized, and my observation is that most aren't sized correctly, you probably are running in shoes that are slightly too small.
A few things happen when running longer distances that don't happen during 5 to 15 km distances.
First off, your feet swell, and that makes your comfy shoes, tight after about an hour and a half, sometimes cutting off circulation and giving you tingly toes. I have found that I have to loosen off the lacing near the toe box (where your toes are in your shoes) and I even have a few pairs that the laces are not in the last one or two lacing holes. This allows your toes and front of your foot to be free from pressure and still allow you to tighten up on the top part of the foot.
Secondly, with the downhill component, unless you have shoes that are about a half size larger, the constant downhill will tend to push your feet forward in your shoe. This causes your toes to bump up against the front of your shoe. On shorter races this generally isn't an issue, but with a marathon, an hour of toe bumping, especially if you have longer toe nails, will cause damage to the nail bed. This will make your toe nails get become bruised, build up blood under them or even fall off. That's how runners get black toenails. It doesn't hurt all that much, and it looks more gross than anything, but doing a nail trim three days or so before your race can minimize the chances of you losing a toe nail or two.
Lastly, this is one of those balancing acts... Your shoe must be loose enough to allow for your foot to naturally swell and not cause problems, but tight enough so that your foot will not travel inside the shoe excessively, but not so tight as to cause other problems.
This is one reason why you don't wear new shoes on race day. You should have all this figured out and practiced in your long runs.
One last tid bit of advise... If you are prone to blisters on your toes, and I am, you'll want to put a generous coating of petrolium jelly between your toes before you put your socks and shoes on. It'll feel a little squishy when you first do it, but it will help keep you from developing blisters on the last half of the race.
Good luck, start slower than you want to and have fun.
Mark Collis
www.ontherun.ca
PS. Now is not the time to get a pedicure. A friend did the week before her first marathon. During the time in the spa, she had all the lovely caluses that she had built up doing her LSD's over the summer removed. Nice soft, pretty feet and marathons don't mix. Her feet looked lovely before the marathon, but not so much so after.
Posted by: Mark Collis | October 30, 2008 at 09:46 AM