How to Avoid Peaking Too Soon For a Race

Audio Transcript

Michael: Hey Runners Connect fans. Welcome to another episode of the podcast.

Today, I’m answering a question from Mod about peaking for a race.

Mod: Does anyone know what is meant by peaking too soon while training for a long race? Presumably that is bad and if so, how can it be avoided?

Michael: That’s a great question. Peaking too soon is definitely something that we want to avoid.

When we’re talking about peaking for a race, we generally mean having your training geared for a specific race.

If you’re training for a marathon, then all of your training is geared towards that marathon; it’s not geared towards the training you’re doing a few weeks before or a tune-up race.

It’s geared towards that race, and we’re typically going to talk about a taper, so a taper is the few weeks before the race.

You’re going to lower the volume and the intensity, and basically run some light workouts, not those long runs like we’re going to do in the bulk of the marathon training, but basic, very easy stuff, to get your legs feeling good.

You don’t want to be 100% fresh, as in no running at all the few weeks before the race. You still want to keep some fitness going.

You want to keep your legs moving and your metabolism fired up, but at the same time you don’t want your legs tired like they are when you’re gritting it out in training and doing those hard long runs.

You want to be feeling pretty good during the taper, so that’s what we’re talking about. When we’re talking about peaking, we’re talking about taper.

A lot of times this will include race specific workouts.

This is a huge part of peaking, and these are pretty tough sessions.

Obviously, there’s a lot of difficult workouts that go into any training plan, but race specific sessions are particularly difficult.

To give you an idea of what we’re talking about; let’s say we’re training for five k. A great workout for a five k would be something like 12 by 300 meters at five k pace, with 100 meter jog race or a very slow jog for your rest.

That’s a pretty tough workout and it’s not easy.

That’s getting up close to the volume of a 5K, at 5K race pace, broken up by very short jogs. That’s a tough session, but will absolutely get you ready to run a good 5K.

For 10K it’ll be something like, three times two miles at 10K pace. That’s ultimately 10K of work, with about two minutes jogging rest, so a little bit more rest, but still at that race pace. That’s hard stuff.

Getting into the longer races, probably more relevant to this question, with a great half workout that we love at Runners Connect, is three by three miles at half pace.

You’re going to go three miles times three. That’s nine miles of running, three quarters of a half marathon at half marathon pace, with an 800 meter jog race; so very, very slow easy jogs.

That’s a little bit of rest, but nonetheless, a lot of volume at your half marathon pace. That’s a tough session, so to that degree I do want to mention that for more beginners, we’re typically going to recommend three time two miles, instead of three by three, because three by three is tough.

You need to have a pretty good background and you need to be in pretty good shape before you can tackle a workout like that.

Are our absolute staple workout for the full marathon is the two by six.

We do two by six miles at roughly 10 to 20 seconds faster than your marathon pace and it would take about 10 minutes rest between each.

That’s two six mile intervals; add a little bit faster than your marathon pace and that’s a fantastic marathon specific type workout.

It works wonders; gets people in great shape. Usually for beginners, ideally we get up to two by five, but if we have to go two by four, that’s something we can do.

Either way, a lot of volume done at marathon pace or a little bit faster.

Now, the big thing is that these should not be done too often. These are tough workouts.

We’re not talking about mile tempo runs or light threshold intervals. We’re talking about hard workouts that are specifically to get you ready for that specific race.

Something to discuss there – and this kind of goes into the question of peaking too soon is – let’s say you’re training for a 5K, and we have this race specific session, where we’re doing those 12 by 300 meters five k pace.

When you start doing workouts like that for the 5K, you’re going to lose fitness in terms of other events like longer events, half and full marathon.

In that period where you’re peaking for the 5K, even though you’re in great shape, you’d run slower at the half and the full because it’s very specific for the 5K.

Same goes the opposite way; if you’re talking about training for the marathon, you’re doing those two by six mile workouts; you’re doing those long runs with fast finishes.

If you were to go run a 5K in that time, you probably wouldn’t run very well.

You probably would not run even close to your PR even though you’re in fantastic fitness. It’s very specific fitness, which is very important.

That’s something that you have to have to run your best at a particular race, but at the same time, it will come at the expense of other races.

Here’s a good example and this has happened to a ton of people.

You’re training for a big race. You have your goal set, you peak properly, everything goes right, and then the race gets cancelled.

Maybe the weather is bad or something else.

What usually happens in that case is, you’re in shape and you want to run a race.

If you wait too long, unfortunately, let’s say you can’t find another race for like a month, it’s kind of tough because you’ve already tapered, you’ve already done the peak, you’ve already done the race specific stuff, so you have a small window to get a race in.

What we usually recommend, when something like that happens, is we say, “Hey, look. Let’s see what we can find right around the corner.”

That’s tough for marathons because marathons fill up and stuff like that, but if you argue your case, you can perhaps get a pity entry.

That’s a tough situation and it illustrates what we’re talking about in terms of peaking too soon, so obviously it wasn’t intentional.

Nonetheless, you’re not going to be necessarily optimal if the race you chose afterward isn’t soon enough. Your peak has passed.

Now, a good example of something that’s typically human error, and that a lot of people have done incorrectly, is peaking too much for tune-ups.

This is a big one, because tune-up races can be an absolutely pivotal part of a training plan.

They’re important and have their place. They kind of break up the monotonous training and allow you to test your fitness a little bit.

They give you that bit of that race effort that’s going to make you feel more confident physically and mentally come race day. They’re fantastic.

Tune-ups are fantastic, but if you’re putting all your stock into your tune-ups the problem is, what are you going to do?

You’re going to taper. You’re going to peak, get your legs 100% ready for these races, when your goal is not that far away.

Let’s say for instance, people who want to do some short, quick races before their marathon, that’s fine.

It’s fine to break a marathon training with some 5Ks or 10 Ks, but if you get to the point where you’re doing the speed work, it’s necessary to run your best at those 5Ks.

What did I mention earlier? You’re going to lose marathon fitness and lose that aerobic fitness that you need for the marathon.

You don’t want to peak too much for tune-ups and luckily this is a preventable problem.

Basically, what we do at RunnersConnect is we say, “Let’s put a number on it. Let’s say between one and four, how important is this tune up?”

If it’s just some fun run, that you’re just jogging or maybe a turkey trot, we’ll call it a one. That’s a fun run. It’s just an easy run for you and not a big deal at all.

If, on the other hand, it’s a big half four to six weeks before your marathon, we’ll say, okay that’s a four. It’s a big race; we clearly want to run well, nonetheless though, it’s still a tune-up.

It’s still not the goal race. We’re going to make sure that we keep the goal in mind and have everything geared towards the goal.

We like tune-ups; we love them. They have their place in a training plan, but nonetheless, we always want to make sure there’s a clear distinction between the goal races and the tune-up races.

We want to make sure that everything is geared towards the goal, with the tune-ups; I don’t want to say as an afterthought, but definitely as number two on the priority list, behind the goal races.

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what peaking is and what it means to peak too soon. It’s definitely a big problem but at the same time, if we’re talking about a matter of a week or two here and there, if your peak is “off” by a week, it’s not a huge deal.

We’re talking about if your peak is off by a month, that’s when we get to the point where we have some problems and maybe your fitness is almost too specific, too soon.

That’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about peaking too soon.

It’s a preventable problem if you have a smart goal and plan ahead of time.

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Thanks for tuning in Runners Connect fans and have a great run today.