Big race is in one week, how do I prepare?

By: stephenmeyers

So the Horsetooth Half Marathon is one week away. You’ve been training for eight weeks or more. You’ve done the long runs. You’ve done the intervals. And hills. And been eating correctly. And read this blog everyday (OK probably not).

But the point is, your body is ready to run the race and with one week to go you do not want to hurt yourself. Getting antsy and trying to squeeze in one last long run, replacing your runs with other high-intensity workouts such as basketball or cycling, or filling up your pre-race week with things that will tire you out (moving furniture) - all of these will hurt performance on race day.

There are many things you can and should do in the week before the race that will help you on race day. Here are some suggestions from Coach Joe English at Running Advice and News:

1. Get more sleep. For any students out there, hopefully your exams were last week (like mine!) and you can recover this week and add an extra hour of sleep each day. This is especially important because you’ll probably be restless the night before the race and not get much sleep.

2. Drink plenty of fluids starting Monday or Tuesday rather than the day before the race. Take a water bottle with you to work or class, avoiding long periods without drinking. Your urine should be light yellow in color and you’re likely drinking too much if your pee is colorless. (More on hydration from Coach Joe English).

3. Eat plenty of carbohydrate rich foods. Start increasing the amount of carbohydrates in your meals at the beginning of the week.

4. Don’t over eat. You’ll be exercising less, so you don’t necessarily need to eat more than normal to carbo-load. Avoid fatty and sugary foods, instead favoring starchy foods.

5. Avoid alcohol. Sorry everyone, it dehydrates you. If you must, limit your drinking to one beer a sitting.

6. Take your rest days. Your workout schedule calls for them, so avoid the temptation of a pick-up basketball game or rock climbing. You need to be resting. Rest means rest!

7. Get a massage on the Wednesday or Thursday prior to the race. It can relax you and loosen you up. Plus it just feels good.

8. Try to relax. Put pre-race anxiety aside by focusing on all of the preparations that you’ve made to get ready for your race.

9. Focus on pace work and short speed rather than going out logging big miles the week before the race. These short runs focus on internalizing your race pace. Short/fast speed workouts keep the legs fresh without tiring yourself out. A good example of a workout like this would be: 4×400M or 4-6 laps of 200M hard/200M easy.

10. Take a nap the day prior to the race as you’ll most likely have a difficult time sleeping later that night.

11. Have all of your gear (shoes, shirt, shorts, race packet, etc.) prepared the day or two before the race. Nothing worse than having to scramble the morning of the race looking for your other running shoe.

12. Don’t rush yourself on race morning. Get up with a reasonable amount of time to allow yourself to wake-up, eat, and get your pre-race bathroom trips (#2) out of the way.

13. Relax. The bottom-line is to relax both mentally and physically in the week before the race.

So, relax, get sleep, eat/hydrate well and avoid physical activity other than your workouts in the week leading up to the race. You’ve done all the training, so there’s no reason to mess it up the week before the race.

Good luck and I’ll see you all there!

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