How Much Racing?

kennyb3

1. I know there will be a few differences of opinion but just wondering how much is deemed the correct amount of racing (2miles to 10miles say)?

once a week or once a fortnight? (or some rule for miles raced versus days between) I know it will depend slightly on the race length

2. How to go about combining the two? If races are on a weekend, would you do your long run two days after (e.g for a sat race do it on a mon night following a recovery run on a sunday?) Also would you just do one other session the week following or two? which to do tempo or interval or just alternate?

My question comes from the fact that i pan to do the raheny 5 on 31/1, the mysport 10k on 14/2 and the 5k st patricks 14/3.

Im wondering whether to fit another race (maybe even some of the raheny 2/3 milers) in between the 10k in Feb and the 10k in March or whether i ll benfit more from the extra mileage and guaranteed 2 sessions plus long run for the month in between.

I know somone will mention peaking so basically my aim would be to run sub 19 for 5k (19:40 pb at present) and very close if not under 40 for 10k (havent raced). How soon this is achievable i dont know but i hope the first 2 races will tell me where i stand and hopefully i ll get close to 19 by the march one.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

shels4ever

kennyb3 wrote: »

1. I know there will be a few differences of opinion but just wondering how much is deemed the correct amount of racing (2miles to 10miles say)?

once a week or once a fortnight? (or some rule for miles raced versus days between) I know it will depend slightly on the race length

2. How to go about combining the two? If races are on a weekend, would you do your long run two days after (e.g for a sat race do it on a mon night following a recovery run on a sunday?) Also would you just do one other session the week following or two? which to do tempo or interval or just alternate?

My question comes from the fact that i pan to do the raheny 5 on 31/1, the mysport 10k on 14/2 and the 5k st patricks 14/3.

Im wondering whether to fit another race (maybe even some of the raheny 2/3 milers) in between the 10k in Feb and the 10k in March or whether i ll benfit more from the extra mileage and guaranteed 2 sessions plus long run for the month in between.

I know somone will mention peaking so basically my aim would be to run sub 19 for 5k (19:40 pb at present) and very close if not under 40 for 10k (havent raced). How soon this is achievable i dont know but i hope the first 2 races will tell me where i stand and hopefully i ll get close to 19 by the march one.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

I have read that after a race it takes the same number of days to recover, or before a quality session can be done. If I was racing 100% on a weekend then that week would usually be in week 4 of a training plan. I try for 3 hard week to 1 easy week. If I race that week I wont have any speed session and mileage would be reduced also.

I like to race a lot myself but not doing much at the moment.

kennyb3

this place seems very quiet these days (well except the logs), anyone else care to share their views? surely there are people among us who race week in week out?

TFBubendorfer

kennyb3 wrote: »

My question comes from the fact that i pan to do the raheny 5 on 31/1, the mysport 10k on 14/2 and the 5k st patricks 14/3.

Im wondering whether to fit another race (maybe even some of the raheny 2/3 milers) in between the 10k in Feb and the 10k in March or whether i ll benfit more from the extra mileage and guaranteed 2 sessions plus long run for the month in between.

Personally I think this is very much do-able. As shels4ever said, the rule of thumb is to recover (i.e. don't do a fast workout) for a day for each mile raced. If you follow that, you could even do a 10k every weekend.

There is only one way to find out of you can really handle this, and that is to try it out. I'm usually training for a marathon, and if I do a shorter race at the weekend I generally do a long run the very next day, so it's not necessarily a question of doing the race or the long run.

misty floyd

Well I can only talk about my own situation really (if that’s any use)....I'm not experienced enough to recommend. I'm training for a marathon and this time around that is pretty much all I care about. I've signed up for 2 races that take place during marathon training. At raheny, I'll go into that race not having tapered the distance work too much (5 days of running and maybe 55 miles for the week). It'll give me some idea of where I'm at but it won't be as accurate unless I cut my weekly mileage right down and rested the day or two before. So my week is gonna be something like this:

Mon:rest after a hard week
Tues: One of Tergat's big sessions (14 miles with 4x2m at HMP)
Wed: 6 mile recovery
Thurs: 8-10m easy
Friday: 8m easy
Saturday: 5m
Sunday: 2 mile warm up jog. 5m race. 5 mile cool down/recovery

I won't do HMP miles the following Tuesday and make the start of my week easy enough pace wise but I'll crank the miles right up again. The other race I'm doing is a 10miler 4 weeks before the marathon and I'll do something similar as above...(might revise the 'big' session though). There are probably errors in my ways but I'm gonna give it a lash and see how I get on. I'm still finding out what works best for me.

Krusty_Clown

I'm not much on the theory of seasonal running (tending to focus more on specific marathon programs, with a couple of 10k programs thrown in for good measure), but my views would be that the number of races depends on yor goals:

While racing can be an essential part of a training plan (my 12 week marathon plan has two races in the schedule) if you typically put everything into your race, then the demands on your body are going to be significant. Fitting in a long run in the same weekend as a race is even more so (and injury risk increases exponentially). So it really depends on your ultimate goal. Are you training for a single end of season race, or are you hoping to improve across a range of distances?

If it's the former, pick your races, and focus on your training goals and staying injury free. If it's the latter, race away. and adjust your schedule so that the long runs don't immediately follow races that take a significant toll on your body.

Hopefully Tergat will be along shortly to share his pearls of great wisdom.

--amadeus--

This place is cyclical - I had expected it to be busier with New Years resolution runners but it'll pick back up again in teh summer when it's warmer and then peak again around DCM.


As for your Q - it's up to you and your objectives, I would suspect. What do you want to achieve? What would you be happy with? Is teh goal to have a laugh, meet some people and run? Or is it to set a PB? How serious are you about the races and which are the most important to you?

I know people who "race" pretty much every weekend. Jesus, if you look at the 100 mara club some of them "race" a mara every weekend. But (IMO) it's not really racing, they are just organised training runs. If you go out and race at sub maximal pace then teh race is really just another hard training session and there is no reason you shouldn't do one (or more!) a week. In essence they are training runs so you train through and carry on.

However you will not reach peak performance that way. To peak you need to build progressively to a race, taper appropriate to distance and rest afterwards. Speaking personally I can't see how you could do that more than once every couple of months when you take into account teh duration of training cycles and adequate recovery.

Personally I will only go to the start line if I am 95% confident of a PB and I have not gone to races I've entered if I didn't think I'd perform to my expectation. As a result I have 17 PBs in 17 races (excluding DCM where I paced and counting debut at a distance as a PB). But I have only raced 17 times in 5 years - an average of just over 3 per year at everything from 5k to mara.

tl;dr:

You can run all the races you want but you can only race every couple of months.

robinph

By the end of this week I'll have done three races, a 5m XC followed by 2m and 5m road races. I'm also meant to be training for a marathon and I'm sure there isn't a plan for that which would be fitting in as many races as I'm doing into it. But seeing as the plan I'm following is "go and run" it's working for me as I get to do what I want which is the races.

I'll probably stop doing so many of them in the last month before the marathon...maybe.

misty floyd

robinph wrote: »

By the end of this week I'll have done three races, a 5m XC followed by 2m and 5m road races. I'm also meant to be training for a marathon and I'm sure there isn't a plan for that which would be fitting in as many races as I'm doing into it. But seeing as the plan I'm following is "go and run" it's working for me as I get to do what I want which is the races.

I'll probably stop doing so many of them in the last month before the marathon...maybe.

You'll be approaching the escalators in the airport on the way to Rotterdam....."race you to the top".

kennyb3

Thanks for all the responses, stuck in work so havent time to write a long reply but will read them all more thoroughly later.

I guess I am racing the first 2 races to set benchmarks at the distances as i ve only run 3 races thus far - 2 being 5k's. this way i ll have a 5k, 8k and 10k, and half marathon benchmark.

I guess my two goals are to get under 19mins for 5k and 40 mins for 10k by mid/end summer and to train consistently doing so.

I think i will run the two races - train hard in between then run the 5k on 14/3 to see where im at then possibly start a new block of training aimed at lowering times and having 2 goal races in the summer (one at 5k and another at 10k).

again thanks to you all.

Brian