It’s an hour until your marathon starts. Nerves are high. You’re frantically checking and double-checking your belt or bag, shoe laces, making sure your watch is working and perhaps applying Vaseline to places we won’t talk about. What about your warm-up? When do you do it? What about the obligatory trip to the toilets? Let’s figure out how you can get everything done in plenty of time.
Some of this will depend on the type of race you’re doing. Whilst big city marathons and the marathon majors have big budgets for things like portable toilets, bag drops and larger scale road closures for warming up, they also come with a far larger number of other runners, so the challenges are different to smaller local events.
Bag drop
Smaller races may have a flexible bag drop where you can drop and pick up your bag a couple of times before the race if needed, allowing you to warm up and go to the toilet without carrying anything unnecessary. Larger races however, will have a bag drop that’s less accessible and will likely require queueing, so factor this into your plan.
If you don’t race with a hydration pack, taking a disposable bottle of water with you is a good option so you can keep sipping small amounts of water before the race.
Warming up
Depending on the quality of your warm-up and the weather conditions, you can finish the pulse raising component up to 30 minutes before the race starts.
You’ll want to include other movements too, such as drills, leg swings, torso twists, exercises like skips or dynamic stretches, and maybe even some breathing exercises.
Small races will probably have plenty of space for such activities until you head to the start line, but in bigger races you’ll likely struggle with this, so be prepared for that.
At the 2021 Manchester marathon, we were packed in like sardines even though I was in the smallest wave who were meant to be given more warm-up time and space. Unfortunately, lots of people were being a little over-ambitious/thoughtless and had flooded to the front of the starting pen. It started filling up quickly so I cut my warm-up to just 400m and was still about 60 rows back from the front, way behind the 3 hour pacers despite my predicted sub 2:40 time. This is an unavoidable issue as people want the best position for starting even if it means going “too far” forward.
Luckily, the marathon can be done without a huge warm-up, and ideally it shouldn’t include more than about a mile of running typically speaking. If you start panicking about a lack of warm-up or annoyed with people being daft, try your best to remain calm and remember the work that got you to the start line in the first place.
Toilet trips
With nerves, carbs and lots of fluid to contend with, you’ll need at least one trip to the portable toilets before the start of the race. Queues can begin to grow so it’s worth keeping an eye on the situations and warming up nearby so you can get your place if it starts moving too slowly or getting too busy.
Whilst you’re waiting, you can still do some components of your warm-up. There are numerous drills, movements and short stretches which can be performed in very little space and without making you look too bonkers.
In the start pen
Here you’ll almost certainly be hemmed in to some degree. As someone who likes their personal space, I hate this part of the marathon most of all. It can feel a bit overwhelming, and with excitement/nerves already rising as the start draws nearer, keeping moving is a great plan.
Leg swings are of course out of the question, but some heel lift drills and bouncing on the spot should be very do-able, and will help calm you as well as keeping your body prepared to work when the race begins.
The scenario will always be a little different, but as a general rule of thumb, my advice would be to plan what you need from your bag and get it dropped in plenty of time. Next, start your warm-up close to some toilets and keep watching how it’s progressing. Once you’ve done the cardio part of your warm-up, queue for the toilet and keep moving every few seconds, taking rests after each exercise or drill. Toilet trip done, head to the start line to be there as your pen opens or just before. Keep moving in the start pen, then run your heart out for 26.22 miles (or thereabouts).
Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach based in Norwich, Norfolk