Tuesday, December 7, 2010

What works for you, might not work for me

Finding a magical pre-race routine is hard. It seems that you must do A LOT of races to figure out what works for you. A day off before a race? 5-min long shake-out run at 4am? Eat salted tortilla with peanut butter and banana the morning before a race?
It sucks. Why can't one thing work for everyone?

This way I will have to race at least twice a week to try every possible scenario and find which one works for me. At my current race rate, I might be done with this and have a perfect routine when I am toeing a start line with other master runners.

My two previous races I did the last workout 4 days before a race. This week I am trying do have only 2 days between the workout and a race. I wanted to do the workout today but then was told that Wednesday might be better so I decided to give it a shot. Who knows, maybe my legs have a short memory and therefore they will remember how to go fast on Saturday.
But I am going to devise my racing strategy based on the workout. And then I will have only 2 days to think about it and let in sink into my little big mind. Or maybe it is a good thing and I will not have enough time to negativise about it:)
Well, we will see how it goes.

I only did a small bike workout today. Spin ups. It was awesome (although during these I feel more than ever that that torture machine does not fit me at all, ouch, and I am expecting the bottom bracket to fall apart or get stuck and make me fly to the ground any moment) because I found a perfect place to do these. There is a huge parking lot right by the ocean and it is completely empty during a business week, not so much on weekends. And it is long enough to do my intervals. So I did not have to deal with cars and I was right by the ocean. So nice. In two weeks my Cali adventure is all over for me:( I will miss it.

4 comments:

  1. You know what sucks even more than the fact that pre-race routines differ for different people? That they will also differ for you from race to race! Argh! It all depends on your current fitness level and your stress level and the length of your race, etc... It takes experience and paying attention to how you're feeling and sometimes just going with your gut about what feels best. In the end, a lot of this is probably in our heads.... meaning- if we BELIEVE that what we are doing is going to work for us, it'll likely work for us. We need confidence building workouts in both the mental and physical sense... because having confidence at the start line goes a long way! :)

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  2. :( It is even complicated than I thought...

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  3. Found your blog through sealegs girl- wow you are fast! :) (Amazing 3:27 at your first marathon!!!).

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