Planning the perfect training schedule is always a delicate balance between doing what is “fun” (ripping 200 meter repeats, 24-hour relays with friends, and racing every weekend) with the optimal physiological adaptations needed to continually run personal bests. Unfortunately, even when you have the ideal training plan designed, things don’t always go as smooth as you might like.
Injuries, sickness, or a difficult spell at work can sometimes leave you out of shape with a long list of races on the schedule that have already been paid for. Or, you might be involved in a running club or race series that requires you to run in all its events, despite not being conducive to your marathon build-up. Whatever your circumstance, you might find yourself in a situation where you have a strong obligation to race often yet still want to make positive fitness gains. While not without its potential pitfalls, it is possible to race yourself into shape.
In this article, we’ll cover the positives and negatives of racing yourself into shape so you can decide if it’s the right choice for you and also provide some helpful tips for how to effectively implement this training strategy.
What to watch out for
Sometimes racing yourself into shape can’t be avoided and it might be the best training option you have available. In this case here are three common issues you need to be wary of:
You’re not going to hit a PR at every race
Given the training load, your current fitness, and your lack of race specific workouts, you can’t expect to PR often, if at all, when you’re racing yourself into shape. You should consider these races as high intensity, fitness-building workouts. As such, you should expect that running what would normally be an easy race pace for you to feel hard, or for your effort to not be adequately reflected in your finishing time.
Not running well can ruin your psyche
Along the same lines, it is very important that you not let these bad races impact you mentally. Even when you understand that you’re training through a race it can be difficult to run poorly and get beaten by runners who don’t normally beat you. It’s important that you remember the bigger goals ahead of you and stay mentally strong through the weeks you’re racing yourself into shape. Otherwise, you’ll destroy your confidence and try to over compensate during your other workouts during the week.
Races are still harder than a regular workout
While you’re using the race as a workout in your mind, races are still harder on your body than a normal workout because you’re not staying within a certain effort or pace range. Even if you say “I am just going to do this race as a tempo run”, it almost never works out this way – you’ll always run as hard as you can when the bib is on and the competition is there. This means you’ll need to be extra cautious when it comes to recovery and overtraining physically. Likewise, you need to be cognizant that you don’t burn yourself out mentally or get stale from racing too much.
The benefits of racing yourself into shape
While racing yourself into shape is a tricky, high-risk way to train, it does have a few benefits that can help you improve, both short-term and long-term.
You don’t have to workout alone
Perhaps my favorite benefit is that you don’t have to “workout” alone. If you do a majority of your hard running alone, it can be nice to have competitors along with you to help push you to better performances and distract you from the mind-numbing task of running hard for 10k. Along the same lines, having “training partners” can help take your workouts to the next level, especially if you’re having trouble pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone.
You can easily measure progress
One of the hardest things about executing long blocks of training without racing is that it’s often difficult to notice imperceptible gains in fitness. It’s difficult to compare how 10×800 meters compares to a 2 x 3 mile tempo in terms of quality or progress each week. When you race yourself into shape, you can pretty easily track your progress from race-to-race, even on different courses (using familiar competition as a barometer). It can be a boost to the confidence if you’re progressing each time you race.
Gain experience racing
You can gain a lot of racing experience from racing frequently. Veteran runners can get more practice at events outside their normal comfort zones and beginners can hone the racing skills they’ll need to set big PRs down the road. Lots of things can go wrong during a race (watch malfunction, falling, shoes coming untied, learning to time your kick) and racing often can expose you to these different experiences so you’ll be prepared should they happen at a goal race.
How to race yourself into shape
Now that you understand the potential benefits and pitfalls of racing yourself into shape, here are some helpful tips for implementing this strategy into your training schedule should the need arise.
Don’t taper for each race
To ensure that racing yourself into shape doesn’t become just racing each week without progressing towards a bigger goal you’ll need to keep your overall mileage high. Don’t shorten the distance you run the day before the race and consider adding a few miles to the warm-up and cool-down to keep your overall mileage high.
Don’t try to squeeze everything in, but don’t neglect any one system for too long
The race needs to take the place of one of your workouts for the week. You can’t run a long run, speed workout, tempo run and race in one week. That is simply too much quality, even for a well-trained runner. The race should take the place of one of your quality workouts.
However, you need to make sure you don’t replace the same workout each week or you risk leaving that energy system behind. If you skip your long run every week, you’ll be sacrificing aerobic development. Meanwhile, substituting a race for a tempo run is a close approximation, but it isn’t exactly the same physiological energy system, so don’t be fooled. Mix up the workouts and race distances you run to make sure you’re hitting all your energy systems.
Space out your races
The biggest mistake runners make when they are trying to race themselves into shape is thinking they need to race every weekend. Not only does racing take a physical and mental toll, but as noted above, you still need time to train. You should be racing no more than once every two weeks, although spacing your races out by three to four weeks would be even better. Remember, it takes 7-10 days to realize the benefits of a workout, so if you race every weekend, it will be difficult to see measurable gains.
Implement these three suggestions and be wary of the potential pitfalls of racing yourself into shape and you’ll increase your chances of success when coming back from injury or partaking in a long race series while still keeping your eyes on the big goals ahead. As always, ask your coach if this is a good strategy for you and we would be glad to help.
A version of this post originally appeared at competitor.com
