Racing for…

There are a number of reasons people sign up for a race. It may be to have a family outing on or near a holiday. It may be motivation to train and get in shape for a certain distance. It may be that a friend has signed up for something and wants you to join them. If people are aiming for a personal best time for a distance, like a 10K, they will likely run several 10Ks in the few months leading up to it to prepare themselves.

Professionals pick certain races for time or place goals and train around those. Though they’ll still be pushing hard in these advance races the taper for them, if it exists at all, won’t be as significant as it is for the main event.

Though the vast majority of us are not professional, we also can benefit from tune-up races. Like so many things in life, mimicking a high-adrenaline, stressful event in practice is difficult. With running, typically the more you race the better you’ll be at it. This isn’t just a case of the physical exertion. It’s also learning how to handle race-day nerves and the atmosphere, and the stress those can place on brain and body.

If you’re aiming for a specific time and/or distance, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. If your goal is a certain time in a 5K or 10K, it’s good to run other races at that distance in the weeks leading up to your circled event. With the rule of thumb that you need one day of recovery for every mile of a race, in theory you could do a 10K the week before a race. That being said, giving yourself a two-week buffer also works. If you’re going for a longer distance, you won’t want to match that distance too close to your main race, but you can still go for shorter races to at least get or regain the feel for race day atmosphere.

I’ve signed up for a 10K in July; this is well before my marathon in October. In addition to this, I’ll find a few other races before then. Though I’ve done many races over the years and a number of time trials over the past year, getting back into, or staying, in race mode is key to having a successful goal event.