Sarah's Health Notes: TLC for runners
Whether you’re running the London Marathon this coming Sunday or taking the pushchair and/or puppy for a jog round the park, aching muscles will love some special TLC to help recovery
I’m surrounded by marathon runners. My husband was (he ran the London and Sydney marathons years back), my niece and nephew are (though not London this year), my friend Annee de Mamiel is prepping for New York and many more. Me? No, I don’t run but I do ride, muck out and yomp up steep hills. You get the drift….
It all leads to grumbling muscles and joints ‘groaning the blues’, as Eric Clapton growled (well, moaned actually) when you really want to feel ‘Wonderful Tonight’, his love song to the divine Patti Boyd. (Okay, so I was a bona fide rock chick back in the day and passing years can take the chick out but the rock never leaves you….)
Anyway, moving on! On Sunday, those London Marathon runners will likely be a combi of nervousness and bouncing around with excitement, then enjoying the camaraderie at the start line. En route, jelly babies are often handed out, though en France I’m told you’re likely to get delectable pastries, in Italy local specialty biccies and the USA loves scrumptious chocolates!
As well as good socks (currently Nike and Hilly for my family), Science in Sport isotonic energy gels are popular before, during and after the race.
At the end, my nephew, who also runs 50km++ ultra-marathons, says he normally has ‘a cry with happiness, excitement and exhaustion’. (In Spring this year he powered his way round 50km in the West Country, then celebrated by pulling a ring from his pocket as he fell over the finish line and proposing to his now wife.)
As well as a cooling down stretch and a good meal, products can really help recovery. And this is where the well-priced range in the Aroma Active Recovery Kit comes in. It’s a diffusion range from Aromatherapy Associates so the creators really know their stuff and the aromatic products are stuffed with botanical actives including CBD.
Muscle Recovery Bath Soak/£15 for 250ml – buy here
Muscle Recovery Balm/£12 for 100ml – buy here
Muscle Cooling Gel/£12 for 100ml – buy here
My little team trialed these and loved them, hailing the ‘great aromas’. Muscles felt ‘comfortable again’; soothed, warmed and somehow also ‘stimulated - not the harsh way that Deep Heat does but you could still feel the effect, particularly on tension in legs’.
For aching joints, I would always add a gel ice pack (lots online), maybe two to keep in freezer so you can alternate. They’re my standby, as decreed by genius chiropractor Dominic Cheetham. And I’m a big fan of stretchy supports for sore wobbly ankles and knees. Really cheap, really helpful.
Also, when I tore a tendon in my inner thigh recently (pretending to be a footballer since you ask…), I was very grateful for a kind of deeply inelegant but super-effective truss-like brace, which had two straps with Velcro fastening; one that went round my waist, the other round my thigh. (It was similar to this.)
Happy trails!
