Using races as training

Throughout my years of running, I never found using races as training workouts to be an ideal way to improve. Races put extra stress on the body that overloads the body’s recovery systems. Doing this too often tends to leave me at a plateaued level, and I have struggled to improve until I broke out of this mode of training.  On the other hand, controlled workouts at a certain percentage of my physical conditioning have usually led me down the right path to running faster. Mixing shorter interval with longer interval along with some tempo runs and some fartlek workouts make for a better way to improve while giving my body adequate time to recovery.

Like I said, this training technique has worked well for me until I started running ultra-marathons. Ultra-marathons are an entirely different beast in my mind. Preparing for ultra means long hours running on sometimes isolated backwoods trails. I am not talking about a couple of hours but what I mean by hours is 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 hours longer. Running for these extended periods of time leaves me tired, very tried, and this increases my risk of simply falling from not getting my foot of the next rock or root. Once hurt, I would have to drag my body out to get help. Honestly, I don’t really want to put myself in to this type of situation.

Which explains why I shifted my training this fall to running more ultra-races. I could still get in my long runs but at least now, I was not entirely alone on the trail. Plus, I had support along the way.  In all honesty, it is a cheap way to get paid help for my long runs and often plenty of company as well.

Let’s be honest here. Finding a buddy to run 10 miles with me is very doable. Finding a buddy that wants to run 40 miles with me is a lot harder. And, I don’t like asking someone to run with me for the first 10 or last 10 miles since they will want to run much faster than I can go for the first 10 or faster than I can go for the last 10. But during a race, there is a better than fair chance that I will find someone running close to my pace. We all know that a little chit-chat makes the miles go by much faster.

So keep this mind with your upcoming training cycles. For most ultra-training plans, they have at least one and perhaps two long runs over the course of four weeks. Mixing in a couple of 50k race is pretty easy to check these boxes while meeting some new people and seeing some different training trough.

Kickin’ up trail dust,

The Cool Down Runner