Spotlight on Yoga for Runners with Eleanor Stowe

After a spotlight on Yoga for Skaters and Yoga for addiction, this month's spotlight is on Yoga for Runners with Eleanor Stowe. This is in preparation for the running season and the London Marathon on April 21st. You can book yoga for runners classes on Eleanor's profile.

If you are participating in the London Marathon, we offer free recovery classes with Eleanor the week after the Marathon. All you need to do is send us a picture of you at the finish line with your medal, and we'll send you the voucher to book the yoga classes by email.

Which one did you start first? Running or yoga?

I went to yoga classes with my mum when I was about 7, so it's something I've practised on and off throughout my life. In my late 20s I took up running and found that combining it with yoga was a great way of limbering up and reducing injury during my runs.

How did you end up practising yoga and which yoga?

I started with Hatha, as that was what was available to me at the time. I think Hatha gives you the chance to slow everything down and really work on the postures in detail. As a runner, getting my posture right is really important to me as I know it can be the difference between good health and injury.

How / why did you think of teaching yoga for runners?

When you get into running, they always say you should crosstrain in order to avoid injury, something which I've found to be very true! Yoga is one of the best exercises you can use to crosstrain running: leg balances strengthen all your supportive leg muscles and help keep your hips level, the stretches, squats and lunges are all really good for keeping your joints and muscles healthy... the list goes on.

What injuries do runners get, and could you give examples of recommended poses to prevent/fix injuries?

Running is very high impact, so there are many injuries runners can get, depending on where that impact is distributed across the body. Common running injuries can be found in the feet, ankles, knees, leg muscles, hips and lower back. Personally, my main niggle tends to be piriformis syndrome, which can cause sciatica-like symptoms and weakness in the hip joint. Pigeon is a fantastic pose for the piriformis, the glutes, hipflexors (psoas) and it opens up your heart space as well, so it's one of my favourite post-run stretches.

Downward Facing Dog is great for tight calves, but it can also be a good way to pedal and stretch out your feet; an often overlooked yet essential area of the body. Goddess pose is great for externally rotating your hip joint whilst strengthening your glutes. Finally, lots of leg balances like Tree and Dancer are going to increase your stability, and strengthen all the supportive muscles up and down your whole body, which takes the strain off some of the major muscle groups, and can really help prevent injury if you're running on uneven ground like cobblestones or when trail running.

Do you practice Yoga while running at all, any poses you do before or after a run?

I have a toddler so sometimes if I get the opportunity to run, I am out the door as quickly as possible! Otherwise, I will stretch my hip flexors with Warrior 1, and dynamically stretch my feet and calves through High Lunges and Garland squat. In my cool-down, I tend to do some Standing Quad Stretches, Forward Folds, Downward-Facing Dog and Pigeon, and often end with a Child's Pose.

Have you ever run a marathon? What would be your recommendations to prepare for training / running the marathon?

I've run three half marathons, but I run 10ks most regularly. There are a load of training plans out there for every distance, so my recommendations would be to really listen to your body, build the distance up slowly and don't worry too much if your training deviates from your chosen plan.

Your body is a unique extension of yourself, so even when you're challenging it, it's important to listen to it when it's unwell or injured, and to reward it with some yummy yoga. It's also too easy to get wound up by the huge numbers of statistics available, so decide what your goal is and just focus on that and on keeping your body healthy.

What would be your ideal yoga recovery program after a marathon?

It would depend on how experienced the runner was and how easily their body recovered, however a good rule of thumb is to work restoratively in the first week or two, before beginning to return to your normal training pattern.

Overuse injuries are very common after long distance running, so gentle stretches and strengthening can be really helpful depending on how bad the injury is. The main thing is that you listen to your body and allow it the recovery it needs; a marathon is an amazing achievement and so those challenging poses can wait until you're feeling fully recovered.