‘I couldn’t have achieved this PB in the London marathon with so little training, had it not been for CurraNZ’

OUR sports customer of the month, Rachel Duffy, shares her story of how she overcame considerable training setbacks to set a new PB in the London Marathon last month - her first in four years. 

Rachel Duffy writes:

“I've been using CurranNZ for nearly a year now. Towards the end of last year, I suffered an ankle injury (peroneal tendonitis) so was off running for a while. 

I started training for the London Marathon in late December/early January and everything went well for a few weeks until the ankle problem flared up again. I did my last "long" (ha!) run of 25km at the end of February, almost two months to the day before the race. 

Then followed three weeks entirely off running, before a few weeks of a slow build-up (9, 12, 14, 18km as my long run, with just two very short (no more than 3 - 6 km) steady runs during the week) and then a taper before the race. 

Throughout this time, I'd been taking two CurraNZ a day, and instead of running I did two spin classes a week, two hot yoga classes and lots of ankle stability/strength rehab work. I was feeling incredibly under-prepared for the marathon, suffice it to say!

On the day, however, despite my lack of training, I felt great. I never felt like I hit the wall, and even managed a sprint finish in the last few hundred metres!

I had been worried I would have to stop and walk at some points during the race, but I managed to run pretty much throughout and finished in 3:41:18 (GFA!). 

This was my second marathon - my first was four years ago and I finished in 4:22, so this was a 40-minute PB despite limited training!

My Strava tells me that my average weekly mileage for the four months building up to the race was just 20.8km a week (just a little shy of the recommended/traditional 40-50 miles, then!). 

I really don't think I could have done that without the endurance-boosting effects of CurraNZ.

My recovery after the race was really good - given my injury history (and limited training) I was fully expecting to have very sore joints and muscle damage / DOMS for weeks after, but everything settled down within a few days and I was back running and in the gym for a light leg session by the end of the week!  Really, really pleased.

Thank you for such an amazing product!  I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with CurraNZ and a proper (non-injury ridden) training cycle for my next race.

Rachel Duffy