Adidas Dublin City Marathon

The Adidas Dublin City Marathon will take place on Monday 25th of October 2010 at 9am. This is the 30th year of the Adidas Dublin Marathon, which is run through the historic Georgian streets of Dublin.

For more information and further assistance contact; Race entry queries;

Go to www.dublinmarathon.ie

office@dublinmarathon.ie
Tel: 00 353 1 6232250
Fax: 00 353 1 6263757

If you would like to "Run for Asthma" and fundraise for the Asthma Society contact us now for your sponsorship pack on 01 8788511 or email office@asthmasociety.ie. We can also help you to set up a www.mycharity.ie page.

Frances Franklin's top tips on how to PREPARE for your first marathon.

Running a Marathon is not easy, you need to be organised, focused and determined. For 1st time marathoners the emphasis should be on simply completing the course rather than doing it in a specific time.  You are never too old or too unfit to think about running a marathon, but my advice is to enlist the help of a personal trainer or other suitably qualified sports person. I was lucky to have my son Eoin* as a personal trainer for my first marathon.

Here are some tips I found useful for my 1st marathon. Preparation is vital and hence my top tips are all contained in the word PREPARE.

P - Plan ahead. Draw up a running schedule or training diary - minimum six months.  To do this you will need to enlist the help of a personal trainer who will gauge your fitness level, draw up a training diary for you personally and monitor your progress throughout the training.  You will also get advice on diet, warm up and stretching exercises etc.  You might also consider some core stability and weight bearing exercises particularly if you are over 40 focusing on your 1st marathon.  Alternatively you can download a general training schedule from the web.    This is fine for subsequent marathons when you have some experience of what is entailed but for 1st marathons I recommend a personal trainer where the training programme will be specific to you.

 R - Record each run or tick it off on your training diary. This allows you to monitor your progress, to congratulate yourself on the run you have just done and to be enthusiastic about your next scheduled run.

E - Eat carbohydrate with slow energy release. Porridge, whole grain breads, cereals, pasta and rice are amongst the best.   Don't forget to add in plenty of fruit and vegetables to ensure that the body has its full quota of vitamins and minerals for the task ahead. Hydration is important so always carry a bottle of water with you on your run.

P - Pace yourself. Each person has their own natural sustainable running pace but to discover what that pace is a Polar or other make training watch is worth while. Not only will it help you discover your running pace but it will also monitor your heart rate. It is also a great motivator because as your fitness improves your heart rate goes down.

A - Alternate hard sessions with easy runs or cross training to give your tired aching muscles a chance to recover for the next challenging run.

R - Rest for at least one day each week and have two active recovery days when some alternative cross training such as swimming, cycling, core stability training, weight training etc is done. These rest days allow the body to recover and adjust and cope with the increasing running demands of the coming week. (It is recommended that your long run should be increased by not more than 10% each week).

E - Enjoy your running.  Don't try so hard that it becomes a chore or you will learn to hate it.  Relax and run at a pace which allows you to chat freely. Running is a great stress buster, headache and of course asthma reliever.  Your muscle and bone structure will benefit enormously preventing or even reversing osteoporosis as it did in my case.  Forget your face lift and the Botox.   Get your fitness levels up and you'll look and feel 10 years (or more) younger! Good luck!

*Eoin Franklin is a Sport Scientist based in Limerick and can be contacted on 087 2841602.

To read more about Frances Franklin click:
http://www.asthmasociety.ie/news/news16.html

Top Tips on Exercising with Asthma

1. Be in control* - take your asthma medications, especially preventer medications, correctly and regularly
2. Have regular reviews with your doctor/nurse and have a personal written Asthma Action Plan
3. Make sure your coach/trainer/running partner knows that you asthma
4. Always have your reliever(blue) inhaler easily accessible with you when exercising
5. If exercise triggers your asthma take your reliever inhaler immediately before you warm up
6. Always warm up (15-20 mins) before exercise and warm down after exercise
7. Identify your asthma "triggers" and try to avoid them
8. Increase your fitness levels gradually
9. If you have asthma symptoms when you exercise STOP, take your reliever inhaler and wait 5 minutes until breathing easily and symptom free before staring again
10. Carry your reliever inhaler and an Asthma Attack Card with you AT ALL TIMES