This is the general race weekend final instructions note.
Remember to lay low and stay off your feet the days before the race (no Expo attendance for longer than 1 hour). Your reward is race day itself and the challenge of running. . . .
Arrival
Make sure you get outside and feel the air. Go for at least a 20 minute walk or jog on either the day before, or two days before (or whatever is on your schedule).
Think about what you did, not what you didn’t do in your training. When you go to pick up your race number or run into old friends, family etc. everyone will want to ask about your training so they can tell you about theirs. Forget about theirs and don’t compare yourself to anyone. The training plan that you completed has been highly successful for many runners. So when “joe cool” tells you he did ten 25 mile runs just remember all the good workouts you have completed.
Night Before, Morning Of
Have a full meal the night before. Try and consume some complex carbohydrates (pasta). Do not over eat, but make sure you fill up.
On race day eat some calories early in the 400-500 range of carbohydrates including the sports fluid you drink. For mid-morning race, you may want to have a few extra calories because of the late start or have a snack in the 100-200 calorie range wants you arrive at the race site. Drink gatorade (or any sports drink that doesn’t include protein) and/or water frequently to assure you are hydrated (clear urine is a good sign). You should stay well-hydrated throughout the morning before the race. At some point prior to the race stop drinking so you can empty your bladder before the start. It is important to refrain from over-consumption of water alone, as that will drain your body of needed electrolytes.
I suggest you take some throw away warmups to the start especially if it rains. This could be an old t-shirt or old sweat pants. Also old socks will keep your hands warm. Some runners will even wear the t-shirt for the first couple miles of the race until they warm up and then pull it off and throw it away. This is a good strategy to prepare for all temperatures.
Take a bottle with gatorade/sports drink to the start with you and right before the gun goes off drink 4-8 ounces. This is your first water stop. If you drink close enough to the start you shouldn’t have to pee – the fluid should only drip through your kidneys because most of your resources (blood) will be in your legs and out of your gut.
Early Miles
I suggest that you start 30-60 seconds per mile slower than your Marathon Goal Pace (MGP). You should run the 2nd mile at 15-30 seconds/mile slower than MGP. Try to get on pace by the 3rd mile and stay on pace until 18 or 20 miles when the race starts. I recommend this approach as it may activate (and utilize) a higher percentage of fat fuel over the first couple miles. Remember we are trying to conserve glycogen and muscle for as long as possible.
Glycogen conservation is key as you can’t rehydrate during a marathon. So drink early and often (4-8 ounces every 20 minutes). It is better to consume enough fluid early and sacrifice the later stops if necessary.
Remember the 3 ‘C’s’
Confidence: Have confidence in your ability and your training. Remember all those hard workouts you did. Remember those early mornings, late nights, sore calves, tight hamstrings etc. - they weren’t in jest.
Control: You must relax yourself early in the race. You absolutely must go out under control and run easy for the first 18-20 miles. The marathon is evenly divided into thirds (in regards to effort): 1st 10 miles, 2nd 10 miles and 3rd 10K. Save yourself for that last 10K by running easy in the beginning.
Collection: Keep your thoughts collected and on your objective. In the typical big city marathon there will be about 250,000 distractions along the way. The further you get in this race the more you need to focus on yourself, goals and race strategy. Don’t let the fans and competitors into your zone.
The Ebb and Flow
I said before that I can’t guarantee anything about the training or the Marathon race itself. Well, I can guarantee this: you will feel good at some point and you will feel bad at some point within the race.
Marathons always ebb and flow, runners never feel terrific the entire way. We always hit little walls. If you hit one just focus on the next mile, don’t think about the end of the race. If you take each difficult moment one mile at a time you will usually feel better at some point. It always comes back because. . .
You Always Have One Cup Left
That’s right – you always have one cup of energy left. The difference is that some people find it and some don’t. Remember what normal, untrained people do when they feel discomfort – they slow down and feel better. You are not a normal un-trained person.
You are a marathon machine!
As a machine you will have to dig down at the end to determine if you will have a good effort that you can be satisfied with or not.
Go get that last cup!
From Christi, "I decided to commit to using the Runcoach app when I signed up for the USAF ½ marathon. I was looking for a straightforward program that would be user friendly and generate speed and threshold workouts specifically geared towards my fitness level and race time goal. Completing the training workouts has improved my running form, VO2 max, and confidence. It has been enjoyable to run such a variety of paces. This has kept me mentally fresh and stimulated throughout the training weeks".
Christi, we wish you light feet and a strong heart on your virtual race day. Go enjoy your personal winner's circle!
Winter is not the only time your running may take you among the clouds. Summer vacations or trips with family might bring you to the mountains. When you need to run at high altitudes, keeping in mind a few simple things can make your experience much more enjoyable and productive.
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate
At high altitudes, you may not feel sweaty, even after you run. However, that does not mean that you don’t need to replenish your fluids even more so than at sea level. At higher altitudes, there is less air pressure. Evaporation happens more rapidly both off your skin as well as every time you exhale. At an altitude similar to Denver, you perspire about twice as much as at sea level. If you are not being very deliberate about water intake, your running will suffer, and general dehydration may make you feel ill (headaches, nausea, fatigue are common effects) regardless. Carry a water bottle with you, drink throughout the day, and avoid caffeinated beverages. If you are concerned about how much to drink, weigh yourself before and after a run at altitude to get a sense of how much water you have perspired during the session.
Expect to adjust your paces
Running at altitude requires your body to function when your lungs aren’t getting the same concentration of oxygen with each breath. Your body has to fight harder to produce red blood cells and the whole operation makes things more difficult on your muscles to function in the manner to which you may be accustomed. If you can run an eight minute mile at sea level, doing so at an altitude similar to Albuquerque or Reno might leave you the finishing the length of a football field behind your sea level self. For instance, your Vo2 Max pace is adjusted about 3% per 1000 feet, and expect it to still feel pretty tough. Keeping a good humor and realistic expectations is key to successfully managing your schedule when heading to the hills.
It will get better...but it will get a little worse first
There is a lot of discussion about the benefits of training at altitude, but a long weekend at a mountain cabin won’t quite get you there. When you arrive, your body begins to fight the good fight to produce red blood cells, despite the paucity of oxygen. Initially, it will lose this fight, and your red blood cell stores will dwindle a bit over the first few days making these days successively more difficult to a certain extent. After your body figures out that it needs to work a ton harder, it will, and production will ramp up like a toy company at Christmas. However, this takes a about 2-3 weeks before supply can catch demand. Once you return to sea level, this high octane production will dissipate fairly soon as the air pressure yields more oxygen per breath. So, if you are serious about wanting to train at altitude, plan a longer stay, and don’t expect a huge boost months after you return.
Protect your skin
Even a cloudy day in the mountains can result in a sunburn with UV rays over twice as strong at many common mountain heights. Wear hats and sunscreen, reapplying frequently to stay ahead of sun damage.
Keep fueling
At high altitude, your body must work harder to keep up with all the demands listed above and more. A moderate caloric increase is appropriate to keep up with your body’s needs.
While the benefits and challenges of running at altitude are still being researched, a beautiful trail run in the mountains can provide qualitative benefits that go beyond the resultant blood chemistry, and training hard and with friends can plant the psychological seeds for many a goal race campaign. Plan well, take care of your body while in the hills, and enjoy many a mile in the thin air.
Originally written by Dena Evans
Updated by Hiruni Wijayaratne
Summer is the time for colorful, fresh, and fruity.
Fruits are in abundance this time of the year. You should be able to find all ingredients at any local grocery store. The prep for each drink is under 5 minutes!
1) Watermelon Juice - High in vitamin A, vitamin C and potassium. It’s about 92% water.
Ingredients
Directions
2) Lemonade - Great source of vitamin C. Also helps to improve your skin and digestion.
Ingredients
Directions
3)Tart Cherry Smoothie - Beneficial for post run/ workout recovery. Tart cherries battle inflammation, while the protein from the Greek yogurt rebuilds muscle.
Ingredients
¾ cup tart cherry juice
1 cup frozen pineapple
½ cup nonfat Greek yogurt
Directions
1. Place tart cherry juice in blender. Add frozen pineapple and yogurt.
2. Blend ingredients until smooth.
3. Serve chilled.
Written by Jen Van Allen
Updated by Rosie Edwards
While training with us, you'll have a variety of workouts to help you build all-around fitness. Each workout plays a unique role in building your all-around fitness, and helping you reach your goals. It's important to stick to the pace and distance assigned for each workout. On your Schedule & History page, under the "Pace Chart" you'll see the suggested paces for each workout. Below, you'll find more guidance on how to gauge your effort for each run.
MAINTENANCE: Run at a conversational pace, or 65 - 85% of max heart rate. If you’re huffing and puffing, you’re going too fast. These workouts are designed to build your aerobic fitness, without stressing your bones, muscles, and joints. Don’t take your easy runs too fast; save your energy for quality workouts like speed sessions and long runs.
REST: Let your body recover from training stresses, get stronger, and bounce back quickly for your next workout. You may do a low-impact activity: walk, swim, bike, or ride the elliptical. Just take it easy.
LONG RUNS: Long runs are meant to build endurance, and get you comfortable spending hours at a time on your feet. Focus on finishing the distance at your target pace feeling strong. Practice fueling strategies and gear logistics to figure out what will work on race day.
THRESHOLD: This workout, also called a “tempo run,” should feel comfortably hard, but it’s not an all-out sprint. You should be able to say 2 to 3 words while running. Threshold workouts should be done at 85-92% of your maximum heart rate. Threshold workouts will help you develop the ability to hold a faster pace for a longer distance, and they’ll train your legs and your lungs to be more efficient.
SPEED SESSIONS: During speed sessions you’ll alternate between short, fast-bouts of running (typically 800 or 1500-meter repeats) and periods of recovery with walking or easy running. These workouts build cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, stride efficiency, and they get your fast-twitch muscle fibers firing. Those benefits will help you no matter what kind of goal is. Try to complete the assigned workout feeling strong.
To learn more about the purposes of each workout, click here. Have questions? Contact Us.
As with any new adventure, when you are starting off, it can seem dauting to set a goal. To take some that stress off, we’ve asked our coaches for their top tips.
A goal, no matter the caliber is critical to keep you focused. A goal should be ambitious, but not so wild that it will take you an exceedingly long time to reach it. As a beginner, you will see various levels of successes rather quickly. Use this to your advantage and set several personally relevant goals.
(1) Exercise Regularly – Run consistently
This can be simply to run/ walk/ move your body and sweat 2 – 3 times per week, for a month. Building a routine is the first step toward meaningful change in your life. Your body adapts the more times you teach it to do a skill. Continually running/ walking will improve the response within your body
(2) Run a Specific Distance
Be it one kilometer, mile or 5K – marathon, set a distance that you can be proud of completing. Time or pace is not relevant at this point. This is a personal record of the farthest distance you can cover in one-go.
(3) Run Non-Stop
Set yourself a goal to run on-stop over a realistic distance. At first you can even make it a goal to run around your neighborhood without stopping, then move up to a loop around your local park.
(4) Select a Race
Live events are a rare luxury for now, but you can still register to support a race organization which is meaningful to you. Most virtual races will send you a finisher medal, and other awesome swag. These are treats to reward you for reaching the goal.
(5) Weight Loss
Lots of people start running to lose weight. Just like setting your eyes to run a certain distance, you should set a weight loss goal for each week and each month. Experts recommend 0.5-1kg (1-2 lbs) as a safe weekly weight loss goal.
Written By Dena Evans
Updated By Coach Hiruni
Many of us set running goals that culminate in a large race event with thousands of people. Even if you are not completing your goal race at the ING New York City Marathon (more than 45,000 starters) or the Zazzle Bay to Breakers (more than 50,000 starters in 2011), your race day experience will likely not resemble your typical “roll out of bed and head out the door” long run. How do you manage to find your normal, confident, well-trained self in the midst of a completely abnormal situation? Try these tricks for race day success.
Weeks or at least days before your race, take advantage of all the available information on the race website. If your race requires transportation to the start or transportation from the finish, examine your options and discuss the best choices with any friends or family members meeting you. Closely examine the course map, particularly if the race offers an elevation chart. Knowing exactly when you can expect hills, and how often hydration, gel, porta potties, and other key items are offered can help ease your stress by eliminating some of the unknowns of a big race.
If you have a web confirmation of your entry, double check you have the correct corral or wave start time, and exactly what tasks you will need to accomplish at the expo (shoe chip confirmation, etc). One of the key reasons to do this well before you race is to be able to contact the race organization in a relaxed way if you have any questions or discover any discrepancies. Usually, the organization is scrambling on race weekend and is off site at the expo so get on it early.
One key way in which many large races will differ from your typical workout is the length of time you will be required to stand at the start and the amount of walking you may be required to do to get to the starting area. Again, read through the race materials well in advance and have a sense of what this will entail. If it worries you, remember that everyone who is racing will also go through the same process, and that all the racers in prior years made it the same way.
To help condition yourself for this and to remind yourself that you will be ok, practice by walking a half mile or a mile before starting a few of your long runs, and then walking that same distance home when you are done. Plan to wear a last layer of clothing that you would be ok with discarding (pick from your Goodwill/ Salvation Army pile at home). This will leave you with a bit more warmth in the wait at the start, and less of a dilemma than if you had worn your favorite and most expensive outerwear to the line. A $3 plastic parka or a trash bag with head and arm holes punched through can also provide a cheap alternative to hold in a bit of warmth. $1 drug store knit gloves (or multiple layers of the same) can also be handy.
Even the most experienced racers have the butterflies on race day. Sometimes this means extra trips to the restroom, particularly if you are well-hydrated. The amount of facilities available at a particular race can vary widely, and it is likely you will need to wait in line, sometimes for quite a while. In addition to being very deliberate about using the facilities at the last comfortable and private location you will have before you head out, consider going right when you arrive at the staging area. If there is a line, you will have allowed yourself time afterwards to grab a drink or sit and relax a bit, and you won’t be as stressed as if you have left it to the last minute and are now faced with a full bladder, a huge line, and 10 minutes until you need to be at the start. A travel pack of baby wipes or Kleenex (accompanied by a small bottle of Purell) in your gear bag can also be invaluable in case improvisational measures are required, or if race management hasn’t managed to keep pace with the usage of toilet paper in the facilities available.
Finally, all of the machinations required to get tens of thousands of people in place to start a huge race require several hours of organizing the people involved. You may need to leave hours before your race and rise at a very early hour. It is worthwhile taking at least a time or two to get up earlier than normal before your run in the weeks leading up to the race to prepare yourself for what that will feel like on the big day. It is difficult to suddenly go to sleep at 8pm on the night before, so don’t expect yourself to be able to get a perfect and luxurious night of sleep from an artificially early hour. Instead, just do your best to have an evenly paced evening so your food is digested, your stress levels are low, and your body can wind down as quickly as it naturally can.
Many experienced athletes have different strategies for managing the above challenges. 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials Fourth Place finisher and our May 2011 Pro’s Perspective interviewee, Amy Hastings, reported that she plans by making Post-It note lists of all the things she will need to do on race morning between waking and beginning the race. Others may have great ideas – if a particular issue continues to trouble you, don’t hesitate to reach out to your fellow runners or to us (write us on the Forum or tweet us at @focusnfly). We’re athletes ourselves and have been there. Now that you have done the hard work of training, we’d love to help you enjoy and excel on race day!
You wouldn’t know it by the strength of her British accent, but Rosie has been in the US for over 10 years. She arrived in Indianapolis to run track and cross country at Butler University. Since then she has progressed through the distances, from 1500 meters to the marathon.
Rosie is fresh of the plane from her most recent race at the British Olympic Marathon Trials, where she placed third with a time of 2:31. Wowza! She loves all things science-based and enjoys putting her Sports Science Degree and running experience into practice.
In addition to her coaching on Runcoach, she is a strength and mobility coach and today we asked her to share a few little tips, which may help in your next race build-up:
Hips don’t lie~
Hip mobility is a huge focus area for runners, whether you are in a car, seated at a desk or watching TV at night, sitting with your knees and hips at 90 degrees can be a little tough on the body.
As runners, hip extension is paramount when opening the stride. However, the everyday seated position can lead to tight and shortened hip flexors which can decrease the length of our stride, costing us precious seconds over each mile and even leading to injuries.
If you have the ability to sit on an exercise ball rather than a chair it will help to keep your hips mobile throughout the day, while activating and recruiting stabilizing core muscles.
Here are some of her favorite hip-opening stretches.
Another key area that we often neglect are the adductors. If we asked you to log how many steps we take in the forward motion compared to the lateral motion each day we'd wager that the majority of us only build in lateral movement when turning very tight corners.
This is why our adductors can become weak and as a result, tight.
By adding a little focused work to strengthen these stabilizing muscles we can once again work towards decreasing injury risk.
Strength exercises for this exercise include clamshells, monster walks, and lateral steps with resistance bands.
One of her favorite stretches can be viewed below. The mountain backdrop certainly makes the stretch more enjoyable.
Hold each stretch for 1-2 minutes or move gently in and out of the stretch for mobility, avoid aggressively bouncing.
Taking a few minutes each day to focus on the little things can pay dividends in the long run, no pun intended. Happy running.
