The summer tends to be a very busy time of year racing wise. So busy that you could race twice a week, every week, if you really wanted to. That being said, even if you race every couple of weeks, it still gets pretty busy. I tend to have a few races in the season that are my A races, and then plan by B/C races around them. The A races are the ones I want to be as fresh as possible for. Therefore, in the week leading up to these, training reduces quite significantly. This tends to be more in terms of volume. We tend to keep some intensity in to ensure the legs are in the flow of moving still and haven’t become sluggish throughout the week. Last week I raced at British Champs over the 5,000m. Therefore, I thought I would take you through my week of training ahead of racing last Sunday. The main message to remember in race week is, there is nothing to be gained, but it can be lost if you overdo it. Less is always more. With the race being a Sunday, the structure of the start of the week was pretty similar to normal. I started with my usual progression run on the Monday. Knowing that I am racing at the end of the week, I keep this on the easier side. I will follow the usual pattern of progressively increasing my effort levels throughout the run, but I will be extra careful to ensure I don’t push too hard at any point. If it starts to feel harder than usual, or my legs don’t feel great, I’ll back off a little bit. Tuesday was also very similar to normal and consisted of a track session. The volume was slightly reduced, but as the race was not until Sunday, it wasn’t tiny. I follow a similar ethos to Monday, and I try not to push too hard. I will get the legs moving, and work hard, but I won’t kill myself. I will keep that extra gear for race day. As the race on the weekend was a 5,000m, I worked on slotting the legs into the feel of 5k pace, so they could get familiar with it ahead of the weekend. Wednesday, as always, was super easy. It consisted of an easy run. Whether it’s a race week or not, I go completely to feel and ignore pace. There is no expectation for this run other than to move the legs. I go as easy as I need in order to allow my legs to recover.
On a normal week, Thursday would be another easy day or a steady run as Friday is a session day, but this week Friday would not be a session day. Instead, today I had a very mini session. This keeps the legs spinning, but is in plenty of time ahead of race day, so there won’t be any fatigue in my legs. The purpose of this session is to get the legs flowing without adding any tiredness into them. I would usually do a very short tempo, just 4-6 minutes with a few short reps after. This could be anything from 200’s to 60 second runs. It also gives me a bit of a confidence boost so I don’t reach race day worrying if my legs have forgotten how to run fast. (We all get those worries!) Whilst recovery and reducing volume/intensity starts at the start of the week, the hardcore recovery really gets going now. Friday was a complete rest day. This means I had NO training to do what’s so ever! I went on a short dog walk to move the legs a bit and of course to give my dogs some exercise, but this was the extent of my movement for the day. We were then at the eve of race day, Saturday! The run on this day is literally for movement. It is important to keep the body moving as I don’t want to feel sluggish and stale on the start line. The amount of running I do before a race varies from 20-30 minutes, but it is never more than 30 minutes. Some people may find it better to go off how they feel rather than setting an upper limit time wise. If you feel 20 minutes is enough, stop at 20. I then finish with a few very short strides to spin the legs out. Sunday was RACE day baby!
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Hannah IrwinI love to run and I love to write, so I write about running! Archives
March 2023
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