Friday, May 1, 2009

Book Review : Marathoning for Mortals

I've just finished "Marathoring for Mortals" by John "The Penguin" Bingham and Jenny Hadfield. Lots of good stuff in this book with a fairly self deprecating sense of humour throughout.

What I liked was getting to the end thinking "right I can do this".

The sections around the structure of the training program were good and so were the sections on injury prevention. Each chapter has a summary of useful tips.
Rest days were particularly interesting. Training adaptation apparently happens when you rest and injuries can crop up when we push too hard and rest too little. The authors recommend cross-training as well to have active rest days - the idea is to give the running muscles a break.

Marathoning for Mortals also includes a number of training plans for the half and full marathons.

Overall I thought it was a good read. Very accessible. Probably best suited for someone just embarking on their midlife crises and who hasn't run a half or full before.



In answer to comments - yes I'm definitely watching the calf muscles. Stretching and not pushing the pace excessively which I think was what happened in Run Auckland 2 a couple of weeks ago. I think what I need to is some slower runs in my program and keep up the stretching program. I'm taking the "active rest days" message to heart though - makes sense. Haven't thought about compression socks. Haven't seen these - how do they work? By restricting lactic acid?

3 comments:

Andrew(ajh) said...

I love John Binghams books - I think I have four of his. The first one I bought was "No Need For Speed", about the time I had just started running. I credit it with really helping me along. I can remember reading it the night before my first fun run.

Check out www.2xu.com for some info about compression garments including socks.

Bruce said...

Sounds like a good read. Thanks for the tip re the fish oil, will have to try some of that.

Andrew is getting fit said...

I've heard some good things about compression socks as well. I'm thinking of investing in a pair.