Wanting to run a fast City to Surf?
Try something drastic like
1. Actually taper, if this is the big race you have been aiming for. Do less running in the ten days prior to the race than you want to. But do something. Halve the distance of the long runs, without increasing their speed. Have more rest between hard (long or fast) days. Cut out weight work and hill work for three whole weeks before the race.
2. Plan to run your race at even pace (effort) for the first half of the race. As difficult as it may be to get through the crowd, try not to surge, but run as steadily as possible. Quick and relaxed and not all out.
3. Really start to race as you approach the summit of “Heartbreak Hill”; race over the hill. Avoid the temptation to have a rest at the top. Instead, accelerate over the top and keep the acceleration going all the way to the line.
The same advice applies to the Canberra Times Fun Run, if that’s your big race instead of the City to Surf. This 10k Fun Run has a hill too, at the half way mark, which runners find difficult.
But if you have not been doing long training runs, leading up to your big event, you can hardly taper without pretty much stopping altogether. So if that is the case, here is very different radical advice. Train through! Actually build up distance towards the race, and run it on the back of that. Yes, it’s the anti-taper.
Mt Ainslie
It must have been cold!
Try something drastic like
1. Actually taper, if this is the big race you have been aiming for. Do less running in the ten days prior to the race than you want to. But do something. Halve the distance of the long runs, without increasing their speed. Have more rest between hard (long or fast) days. Cut out weight work and hill work for three whole weeks before the race.
2. Plan to run your race at even pace (effort) for the first half of the race. As difficult as it may be to get through the crowd, try not to surge, but run as steadily as possible. Quick and relaxed and not all out.
3. Really start to race as you approach the summit of “Heartbreak Hill”; race over the hill. Avoid the temptation to have a rest at the top. Instead, accelerate over the top and keep the acceleration going all the way to the line.
The same advice applies to the Canberra Times Fun Run, if that’s your big race instead of the City to Surf. This 10k Fun Run has a hill too, at the half way mark, which runners find difficult.
But if you have not been doing long training runs, leading up to your big event, you can hardly taper without pretty much stopping altogether. So if that is the case, here is very different radical advice. Train through! Actually build up distance towards the race, and run it on the back of that. Yes, it’s the anti-taper.
Mt Ainslie
