What does Race Week look like?

I’m not sure about you, you might be much more on the straight and narrow than me, but I really love a drink or two. However when race week comes along there’s none allowed. Another ritual of mine is that I don’t have sex that week. Of course certainly at my age but probably for most of us senior athletes we have a lot less sex than we used to in younger years, however when I was in my twenties my trainer’s view was “No sex before a race because it takes an edge of you!” and I have stuck with that since then and still do.

Race week also looks very different for the classification I have given a race, all races are classified as A, B or C, see this post for more information on this subject.

Race Day

I get up 3 hours before race start, generally about 5:00, because I like to have finished breakfast no later then two hours before race start. Of course I have the breakfast of champions before every race, porridge made on milk (I use soy) with banana and honey, a couple of slices of sourdough bread with cheese, banana and honey with a couple of cups of black coffee. Time to travel to the event venue. Once arrived I will start my warm-up 45 minutes before my wave start. See my race-warm-up-ritual document here.

It’s also important to keep the race class in ind while racing, eg last Sunday I raced The Run in Port Stephens in the half marathon distance and until km 15 I was doing a 5:30 mins/km pace but then I started to hurt and instead of digging deep I took the last 6km easy at about 7mins/km because this was a “B” race for me and I don’t want to have more then two days recovery after it. Overall time ended up as 2:09, which is acceptable as a hard training session.

Last Day Before the Race

Unless the race is in our backyard, we travel a day or sometimes two days before to the event venue. I like to check-in the day before and do a reconnaissance on wave start times, course map, number of laps for swim, bike and run the start area etc. Normally I ride in from the accommodation but if Carol, my wife is marshaling we’ll check for somewhere to park as well.

Back at the accommodation I will apply all the stickers, get my race belt ready and lay everything out for the morning.

Since no real tapering down applies to B and C races I sometimes find that I’m pretty sluggish on my Friday ride before a Sunday race. If this happens I go for a 5km very easy run with two intervals, roughly structured like this (assuming a race pace of 5min/km):

• 2km warm-up at race pace plus 3 = 8min/km
• 1st interval of about 400 to 500m at race pace
• Recovery for 1.5km at race pace * 2 = 10min/km
• 2nd interval at race pace
• Recovery to finish, very easy

Second Last Day

Prepare all my gear as per my checklist, you can find my checklist here. Pack the car including by bike etc as per my checklist. Get everything ready to travel tomorrow. This includes a final check 0f my bike including cleaning the chain if I haven’t done it already as well as wiping down any dust etc.

Taper Down for Race Day

If the race is a “C” race then there isn’t any tapering down, it’s training and the result doesn’t matter, see post about race classification here.

For a “B” race, no real taper just taking it easier during race week (low dose).

I will add taper down I use for “A” races here shortly