hard runs before race-day?

Hi! I'm gonna run my first race on Saturday (10km) and am quite nervous and excited already. I plan to run the 10km in 43min (hopefully). I already ran 5km in 21min in a training run so I think I can crack the 43min. Now my question: How shall I train before this race? Would it harm my performance if I do intervals on Thursday or will it have positive effects? What would you suggest from your personal experiences? Any suggestions appreciated. Thx in advance. Greetings, Oerficus!

PS: I have been doing quite a lot hard (fartlek, treshold, interval training) training runs the last weeks. About 3/week.

Personally, I would not do any hard workouts after Tuesday, for a Saturday race. Doing anything hard that close to your race would not give your body time to recover.

dave

Everyone is different. For myself, I have discovered that too much of a taper 'softens'me a bit, and I find race pace a bit of a shock come race day. I continue with race pace runs right 'till the end, but I do two important things as well, and if I didn't I would suffer:

1. Lower the distance (duration) of race pace running as the race closes in.

2. Take more rest time between runs. I normally run 6x weekly. As the race approaches I go to 5, 4, and finally 3 race pace runs on the last week, spread evenly.

This works for me - it may not for you... some people don't like running hard within a week of race time. I do, provided I allow ample recovery and am smart with the mileage.

Like David says, everyone's different. For me (age 49, age makes a difference too), I don't do any strenuous stuff for a few days before the race and don't do anything the day before. It takes a while for a workout to actually get your body 'more in shape' (like two weeks) so anything you do hard the last week may be beneficial for a race in a few weeks but not in a few days. Good luck and let us know how you do. Doug Burke

effects?

It probably won't make a difference either way. It's not really enough time for them to benefit you much and it's enough time that you'd probably recover if you've done intervals before and don't do them too hard. I certainly wouldn't do long (>400-800 meter intervals) that day. Do a few up-tempo 200's or 400's possibly in pickup format to put some spark in your legs, but nothing too quick or long. If you are trying to train through this race and want to peak later, then do whatever you usually do.

See the address below at Runners World. It's about different methods for tapering for races. Some studies reported include tapering for 5 and 10K.
http://www.runnersworld.com/training/oataper.html

For my last 5K race (on Sat, 17 March), I did:

Sun - rest Mon - 5 x 400m at race pace w/ 90s rest Tue - 4 x 400m at race pace w/ 90s rest Wed - 3 x 400m at race pace w/ 90s rest Thu - rest Fri - rest Sat - RACE (good result but I don't know if it's due to tapering method)

In hindsight, I might do an easy 4-5K run on Thu with a few strides (maybe 4).

Hope this helps,

I hope this respons is not too late.

I'm 41, and my experience is that even if you run your intervals on Friday, they can have a positive effect, provided you don't run too fast.

Typically, I run 10 times 400m at my 5k pace (100s in your case), with 400m jogging in between. You may run slower interval times, but never faster.

BTW 5k training results are no predictor for first 10k race results. In running 10k isn't equal to two times 5k. Your pace drops between 5% and 7% if your well-trained, probably more if this is your first 10k. Typically, newbees start too fast, and slow down considerably after 6-7k. If I were you I would pace myself at 4:30/k (7:14/mi) in the first 5k, and then accelerate to 4:20/k (6:58/mi) in the last 5k. This would give you a conservative end time of 44+min. Of course, you can just run that race, and see were it gets you.

Rene van Belzen hurray [at] xs4all [dot] nl My Running Log

I find that the key is not what you do, but what you avoid: high lactate workouts. Even to race 100 meters, I need to cut out high lactate workouts 10 days before a race in order to race well. I've tried the sharp mileage cutbacks (85%) but find that a smaller cutback of 30-50% works better.

For racing a 1500 on the track, I do my last hard 400 session (60-90 second rest) 10 days before a race. 5 days before a race, I do a 1200 session, but with relaxed recovery (4-5 minute rest, instead of the normal 2) so as to not create high lactate in my legs. Thereafter, I only do something like 5 X 300 at race pace (3-4 minute rest) or continuous running (15-45 minutes) below the anerobic threshold. I normally maintain the same quantity of intervals, but cut back the other running to make 30-50%.

Oerficus schrieb:

No advice from me newbie, sorry. I am just curious: where do you race? (Do you need some one cheering for you?)

Good luck!