Reviewing The Marathon Roadmap

Hello, foodies! Today I’m taking a small departure from recipes to talk about my friend Matt’s new e-book, Marathon Roadmap: The Vegetarian Guide To Conquering Your First 26.2.

Unlike most beginning marathoner’s books, this is the first to be written by a vegetarian for vegetarian. Now, I’m not vegetarian(though maybe I should coin No Wheat Athlete…), but I would say I run on plants and am signed up for the National Marathon in March so I was excited to read this when Matt asked me if I’d like to. The more I read, the more I found myself relating to Matt and his first marathon: undertrained, injury-ridden, and stubborn? Check, check, and check. Needless to say, it was helpful to hear the things Matt does differently now training for a marathon to help me run the best I can.

In this book, you will find:

• How to pick your first marathon. This part I kind of breezed past having already picked mine but it had good advise such as not committing financially until you feel confident you’ll avoid injury along the way(Matt, where were you 6 months ago with this advice?!) and a training plan that I am considering using from here on out.
• How to run and train. I thought I knew how to run, but now I’m not sure what I’m doing on the road or if it’s the best I can do. And I’ve never made a distinction between long runs and speed workouts. If you’re a new runner with a time goal, this will be crucial information.
• How AND why to be a vegan or vegetarian for your first marathon. Let’s face it: If you’re buying this book this is probably the part that you’re most interested in. Even as a flexitarian, I appreciated how Matt really covered the whole topic from nutrition to recipes to meal planning and performance.
• All about the race day. This is one thing I had yet to think about before reading and I have to say as a first time marathoner that I still feel pretty lost. It’s good to have the advice of someone who’s been around the block enough to know what they’re doing on race day and take their tips.

What I took away:

No more goal time. Matt makes a good point that running your first marathon is the goal and that obsessing over a specific pace and potentially burning yourself out is counterproductive. Come race day, I’ll be happy just to finish.

I need a tennis ball. Matt does a great job at showing how to stretch your muscles to prevent and help injuries. I’ve always heard of foam rolling but never have found one, but the amount of stretching you can do with a simple tennis ball is astounding.

There’s so much to do to prepare for race day. I never thought before how much detail and care has to be put in to the actual day of the race. It’s scary, really. At least there’s a checklist here I can print out and cross off when that time comes.

Matt’s e-Book launched yesterday and is available for a discounted price from now until next Monday, the 21st. If you want to read more about it, check out Matt’s post or go ahead and buy it.