With the London marathon still a few months away (for the last year before it reverts to its normal spring timing), it’s time to dust off our marathon advice!

It’s all too easy to leave your massage therapy to the last minute. In the same way you wouldn’t shock your body by wearing brand new trainers for the run, you shouldn’t leave your massage routine until it’s too late. We’ve had customers who never get regular massages come in just a couple of days before an endurance event, with a long list of niggles! In these cases, the best option is normally just a general treatment, leaving a longer therapeutic course until after the event. In the immediate run-up to an event like a marathon the advice is typically for ‘active rest’, so this would be the best time for more relaxing massage and not a therapeutic deep tissue massage. After all, your body shouldn’t be in ‘repair’ mode in the days before the event

But with a bit more preparation time in hand, it’s worth planning a massage course into your training schedule. People often underestimate the benefits of including a regular massage in a training schedule. You can gauge your response to regular massage to assess your training progress, and how hard you’ve pushed yourself. As you start building up your distance, this can often cause a build up of small stresses being placed on certain joints and muscles, which can foreshadow an injury. A regular massage can keep tabs on these, and perhaps help you spot a problem before it becomes one. One piece of advice any trainer will give is not to skip rest days – so why not include a massage on those days to help foster muscle recovery!

Our massage shop in Holborn is within walking (limping?) distance from the finish line. Directly after the marathon you may well find some massage therapists working nearby. The post-marathon massage is often little more than a ‘rub down’, with long flushing strokes along the legs, and some calf and thigh stretching to ease any cramps (although the best treatment for cramps is usually fluid, ice, and stretching, rarely direct pressure massage)

Good luck if you are running it, and we hope to see you during your training programme.