home

Marathon diary Follow our medical director as he prepares for the London race

Dr Sneh Khemka, Bupa International's medical director, is running the London Marathon on 25 April. In this diary you can follow his training leading up to the race and get advice on running.

 

Share |

Dr Sneh goes for a run around San Francisco as the London Marathon approaches. You can watch more clips from Sneh's video diary on our YouTube channel.

Planes, strains and immobility

Dr Sneh offers tips on how to warm up and warm down for your training, as his gruelling travel schedule is starting to take its toll.

I’m writing this while I travel on a plane from San Francisco to Connecticut, which is a surprisingly long flight and makes me realise the geographical vastness of the United States.

It also makes me realise that two of the most important things when training for a marathon are mobility and flexibility. Being immobile in an aircraft is making parts of my anatomy that I didn’t realise existed suddenly appear, more for their dysfunction than anything else.

It is well documented in the sports and medical press that warm up and warm down, as well as stretching, is important. But exactly how to do it is far from established: different coaches have different approaches, so this is how I find it best:

When I’m setting off for a run of over 10 miles (or one and a half hours), I’ll give myself 8 to 10 minutes either side for warm up and down. The best technique, I find, is to set off at a brisk walk or gentle jog, just so I can get the blood circulating and the muscles warm. Once they’re warm, then it’s time for stretching (doesn’t really make sense the other way round). Stretches involve any part of the body that’s going to be used, but I concentrate on ankles, calf and lower back, as these take the majority of the impact with my particular running style.

In the warm down, once I’ve completed the run, I immediately stretch off, while I’m still warm and have an accelerated heart rate. I’ll then walk slowly for about 5 minutes just to let everything cool off before I generally collapse.

The essence of this is:
• Stretch when you’re warm
• Warm up and cool down
• Do what’s right for you. Don’t feel you have to stretch everything and take a long time over it – it’s enough to put you off running.

The real elixir of this whole process is that massages are mandatory. If you’re putting your muscles through arduous exercise, the tendons and ligaments will contract and knot as a natural reaction, and so manipulation and massage are key at avoiding pain.

But unfortunately, the gruelling schedule of travel I’ve been on has undone any massage I’ve been able to enjoy. Since I last wrote, I flew to Melbourne (12-mile run); then on to Sydney (16 miles, beautiful around the botanical gardens and via the Opera House); and then to San Francisco (two runs of 11 to 15 miles each, across the Golden Gate Bridge and up the very, very steep streets).

So, I’ve decided that plane travel is not recommended during training, but I do get to experience the charm of running in some of the finest cities in the world, so I have very little to complain of.

Next time – a little more on nutrition and diet. Another upside of all this running is that I can eat what I like and, moreover, I like what I didn’t used to like. 

Next steps