It’s race week for you - or it will be soon enough.
Whether you’re feeling confident or nervous about race day, these tips will help you manage your nerves so you can race well.
And as always, after your big race, spend some time recovering before your next race. Yes, you will get out of shape (a bit), but that’s the point. Even the most experienced and best runners in the world take a break after their big race.
Okay, so here are the 6 tips that’ll help you on race week.
1. Maintain the status quo. Keep your normal routine, just scale back your mileage. The saying “the hay is in the barn” is true. This is the taper time: when you’ve done all the work you can and now is the time to freshen up. Continue to mix easy running with normal workouts, but cut the volume down to allow for you to feel good.
2. Focus on your emotional well-being. This is the week to stay happy and keep away from germs. Do your best to keep negative people at arms length and focus only on the positive situations.
3. Get sleep and if your schedule allows, get a nap in. Sleep, sleep, sleep. All good performances stem from getting adequate amounts of sleep. Didn’t get enough? Not to worry - one or two bad nights won’t kill ya.
4. Since this is your peak race, continue your tapering while keeping the taper crazies from creeping up. You can’t make up for missed miles. Focus on the training that you did do and make your race goals reflect this.
5. Start (or continue) eating healthy foods. Nothing says happy belly like good food.
6. Set a race day plan including thoughts about the course you’ll be running, the weather you might have, and the pace you believe you can run based on training metrics you’ve been tracking all season.
Things to think about:
- At this point in the season, with only a week to go before your peak race, more running isn’t going to make a positive difference. You can’t cram mileage in like you could cram for a test. It doesn’t work like that.
- Similarly, running fast (or all-out) on race week isn’t a good idea. It’s all about checking the boxes and making sure you feel good for race day.
Friday’s Action Plan
Race week is always a little stressful, but keeping it cool will help reduce stress and allow you to run your best.
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Quote of the Week:
Don't just use a scale to measure fitness success. Success can also be: running 3 miles nonstop, having a stronger core, increased energy, or eating more fruits and vegetables than before.
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