Pre-race and Post-race Routines

I was asked recently if I have a pre-race routine.  The runner who asked was wondering if I always eat the same pre-race dinner.  I don’t, but I have other pre-race routines.  This is suddenly on my mind because most of my pre-race and post-race routines assume my race is in the morning.

Most races start in the morning, usually between 6 and 8 AM.  I’ve done a few races in hot climates that have start times as early as 5 AM.  There are also a few large races that start as late as noon.  The Boston Marathon used to have a noon start, although the first wave now starts at 10 AM.   Races like Boston and New York City bus you to the start as much as three hours before the race, so you still get up fairly early to catch the bus.

This weekend I’m a doing the Rock N Roll Las Vegas Marathon.  This race starts at 4:30 PM, so you can run down Las Vegas Blvd. (a.k.a. “The Strip”) at night.  Starting so late in the day changes all my routines.  They’re all based on the assumption that I’ll be running early in the day.

Most people eat a pasta dinner the night before a race.  I used to do this, but now I pay attention to how much I eat, rather than what I eat.  I happen to like Italian food, so pasta works for me if that’s what other people want.

If you’re really serious about “carbo-loading,” you should start a few days before the race.  Your pre-race dinner may still be working its way through your digestive system when you start running in the morning.  To me, the main purpose of my pre-race dinner is to eat enough that I can skip breakfast without feeling hungry in the morning.  Rather than eat specific foods, I avoid certain types of foods.  I don’t want to eat anything too heavy or anything that’s likely to upset my digestive system.

I used to skip breakfast entirely, but now I have a cup of tea and something light, like a Pop-Tart.  Nutritionally, I’d be fine skipping breakfast, but I find that getting some food in my stomach helps “wake up” my digestive system.  Ideally, I like to empty out as much as possible before I leave for the race.  If I can’t do that, I’ll do my business in a port-o-potty before the race.  Worst case is to have to make a stop during the race.  I try to avoid that if at all possible.

This weekend, I’ll be able to eat a full breakfast.  I can also eat lunch.  I’m used to doing training runs in the late afternoon, so this will be similar to a training day.  As long as I don’t eat too big of a lunch, I’ll be OK.

My usually pre-race routine includes getting to bed as early as I can.  I almost always need to wake up early, so I’m hard-pressed to get a full night’s sleep.  I figure out what time I need to leave my hotel room to get to the start early enough.  Then I set my alarm an hour before that.  I always have tight hamstrings, so I need to take a bath and stretch before the race.  Even if all my clothes are set out the night before, it’s hard to be ready in less than an hour.

Having enough time won’t be a problem in Las Vegas.  I don’t have to go to bed early.  In fact, I‘m better off staying up late.  I also don’t need to get up early.  The later I sleep, the better.  If I’m up too early, I may get tired later in the day.  I won’t finish running until about 8 PM.  Ideally, I should sleep in, eat a full breakfast and spend the rest of the morning doing something relaxing.  I don’t have to get ready for the race until after lunch.  If anything, I have too much time.  By afternoon, my muscles may tighten up again.  I’ll probably have to do some extra stretching. 

I’m leading a pace group, so I’ll need to get to the start area early.  That may throw off my pre-race schedule a little.  In particular, my last opportunity to use a bathroom may be an hour or more before the race.  I need to be careful not to over-hydrate.

Most of us take for granted that it will warm up during a race.  When you get up, the temperature is near the overnight low.  It may warm up a few degrees before the race, but it will still be much cooler before the race than it will be later in the day.  I usually worry about having the right clothes to keep me warm until I start running.  I usually wear extra clothes to the start area and then discard them before the race.  If I’m checking a gear bag, I try to wait as long as possible before heading to the start corrals.

Once I start running, it’s easier to stay warm.  If anything, I have to worry about getting too warm later in the race.  At my last two races, it was in the 30s before the race, but warmed into the 60s by the time I finished.

A couple years ago, I did the Run for the Ranch Marathon in Springfield, MO.  That race is in late December, so there’s a shorter period of daylight.  The race didn’t start until the early afternoon.  We didn’t have to worry about it being dark before the race, but I noticed the temperature was dropping in the second half of the race.  People who took longer to finish had to worry about finishing before it got dark.

For my Las Vegas race, it’s going to be about 60 degrees when I’m lining up to start.  That’s kind of convenient.  I can line up sooner without getting cold.  Once I start running, the temperature will gradually drop.  It will probably be closer to 50 when I finish.  It will also be dark.  Not having any sunlight will make it feel colder.  I’ll need warm clothes in a gear bag for after the race.

When a race starts in the morning, I usually finish before noon.  If there are post-race snacks, they usually take the place of lunch. After I get back to my hotel, I’ll take another bath and take my time stretching.  If the hotel has a whirlpool, I may go there to loosen up my legs.  I’ll also work on my legs with a massage stick.  It’s often mid-afternoon before I’m dressed and ready to go out again.  Instead of a late lunch, I usually wait a few more hours and refuel with a large dinner.

I won’t finish this race until 8 PM.  If it takes a long time to leave the finish area, it could be 9 PM before I get back to the hotel.  Obviously, I’ll be having dinner much later than usual.  Even if I eat a quick dinner at a restaurant in our hotel, I’ll be getting to bed much later than usual.  I’ll be surprised if I get to bed before midnight.

It’s amazing how much our pre-race and post-race routines depend on things we take for granted.  Mine assume that I’ll start getting ready as soon as I wake up.  A later start is convenient, but when it’s too late, everything changes.

Weigh-in Wednesday: 11/12/14

I took another step backwards.  I weighed in at 121 pounds this morning.  That’s up almost a pound from last week.  For the first time in two months, my five week average also bumped up a little.  I’ve definitely hit a plateau.

It’s not really a surprise.  I’ve been much more complacent about my eating habits, so I could see the handwriting on the wall.  To make progress, I need to lose weight while I’m home and limit the damage while I’m on the road.  This past week, I didn’t really do either one.

Last week, I had a few days where I was restrained for most of the day, but ate too many snacks in the evening.  I usually run in the late afternoon.  Sometimes, I’ll eat a light dinner, but an hour or two later, I’m hungry again.  Because I’ve been gradually ramping up my training, I’m trying to strike a balance between losing weight and eating enough to fuel my training.  Lately, I’ve been a little too willing to keep fueling.  Sometimes my evening snacks add up to as many calories as my dinner.  It’s like eating two dinners.

Over the weekend, I ran both a marathon and a 50K.  I was probably doing OK until after the second race.  I had a huge dinner that night.  I went to an Italian restaurant where I order a pizza and a cup of soup.  The cup of soup turned out to be more like a bowl.  The dinner also came with a small loaf of bread.  The bread came first, and it was served with “Italian butter.”  (That’s a saucer of olive oil with herbs.)  While I was waiting for the pizza, I polished off a small loaf of bread.

The next day was where the real damage was done.  I was originally scheduled to get home in the late afternoon, but I switched to an earlier flight.  Minneapolis was having its first winter storm of the season, and I had a better chance of getting home if I left early.  A consequence of getting home earlier is that I kept thinking it was later than it really was.  (The difference in time zones didn’t help.)  I ate lunch before my flight and got home feeling like it was dinner time, even though it was still only 1:30.  For the rest of the day, I was snacking.  I didn’t keep track of what I ate that day, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was twice as much as I usually eat.  It was also a rest day, so I wasn’t burning many calories.

I have to get better about my snacking.  I also have to take a long-term view.  We’re going on a vacation this weekend, so I probably won’t lose any weight until the following week.  Then I have to get serious again.

Do I train between races?

When other runners find out I run marathons almost every weekend, they sometimes ask me if I train between races.  The answer is yes.  The races are a big part of my training, but I also need to train during the week.

I don’t follow a conventional training schedule.  For the most part, I make up my training schedule as I go.  The races take the place of long training runs.  How I arrange the rest of my schedule depends on how many days I have between races.

When your races are spaced just a week apart, you can’t take too many days for post-race recovery.  You also can’t spend much time tapering for races.  I usually follow a compressed schedule, with only one recovery day after a race and one rest day before the next one.  The training I do during the week isn’t going to help me much with my next race.  I’m usually preparing myself for other races that are weeks or months away.  I’ll run eight marathons between now and mid-December, but most of my training is oriented toward a 48-hour race at the end of December.

I’d describe a typical training week, but I really don’t have one.  I’m constantly adapting my training around my race schedule.  Instead, I’ll describe the training I did last week.

Sunday was a rest day.  I ran a marathon the day before.  Usually, I recover with some form of light cross-training, such as a core workout or an easy spin on the stationary bike.  I was unusually tired that day.  I flew home from Indianapolis, arriving in the late afternoon.  There’s a one hour time difference between Indianapolis and Minneapolis.  It was also the day we transitioned from daylight time to standard time.  As a result, it felt like it was two hours later than what the clock was saying.  I was behind on sleep, and even 10 minutes of core exercises seemed like more than I could do.  When you’re that tired, it’s time to listen to your body.

On Monday, I had more energy.  As soon as I got up, I did my core workout.  This is a fairly easy workout that only takes 10 minutes.  I’ve been doing these workouts as long as I can remember.  Ideally, I do them every other day.  I have a circuit of three exercises, and I do the circuit three times.  I start with a set of 30 side-to-side twists, holding a small weight disk in front of me.  Next I do a set of 30 incline sit-ups, using an abdominal board.  Finally, I lie down on a weight bench and do 30 leg raises.

Later in the morning, I did weight training.  I did two sets each of curls, bench press, side lateral raises, leg extensions and leg curls.  Ideally, I like to do weight training twice a week.  Sometimes my race schedule limits me to only one weight training workout.  I did this one early in the week, so I could fit in more weight training on Thursday.

In the afternoon, I did a 12.1 mile run/walk workout.  This workout is designed to prepare me for my 48-hour race, where I’ll be continually switching between running and walking.  Walking and running emphasize different muscles in your legs, so it’s important to include both in training.  I vary the length of my walking breaks so my average pace stays around 11 minutes per mile.  That makes this an easy workout, despite the distance.  I’ve found it to be a nice recovery workout for my first run after a race.

On Tuesday, I only did one workout.  I didn’t do anything in the morning, because I wanted to have fresh legs for my afternoon run.  It was a 10 mile tempo run on the treadmill.  A few years ago, I was regularly doing 10 mile tempo runs as my preferred form of speed work.  I had to stop doing these workouts when I was recovering from a hamstring injury.  I’m just starting to get back into them, so I’m not doing them very fast yet.  I increased my speed gradually, topping out at 8.5 MPH (a 7:03 pace).  I held that pace for the last six miles.

On Wednesday, I started my day with another core workout.  In the afternoon, I went running.  I wanted to do an 11 mile course that included some hills, but I was planning to go at an easy pace.  There was rain in the forecast, so I change my route so I would never be too far from home.  As a result, it wasn’t very hilly.  Even though I kept the pace slow, I felt unusually tired.  I pulled the plug at 8.7 miles.  I could have dragged myself through a few more miles, but I played it safe.  I’ve been racing like crazy, and the last thing I want to do is over-train.

Thursday was similar to Monday.  In the morning, I did weight training.  This workout was a little different than the one I did on Monday.  I started with lat station pulldowns, incline bench press and reverse curls.  I finished with leg extension and leg curls.  I include leg extensions in every workout, because keeping my quads strong is important for preventing knee injuries.  I include leg curls in every workout, because I’m still rebuilding strength in my hamstrings.

In the afternoon, I did another 12.1 mile run/walk workout.  I felt especially energetic.  All of my running was at marathon race pace or faster.  All of my walking was 14 minute miles or faster.   Neither the running pace nor the walking pace was easy, yet the overall workout was.  Constantly switching muscle groups keeps me fresh, and my average pace was only 11 minutes per mile.  Just as this is a good recovery workout after a race, it’s also a good workout for my last run before a race.

Friday was essentially a rest day.  I did my 10-minute core workout, but that’s it.  I spent most of the day traveling to a race.

I finished the week by running the Soldier Marathon on Saturday.

Including the marathon, I ran a total of 68 miles.  I also did two weight training workouts and three short core workouts.  Conspicuous by its absence was aerobic cross-training.  A few years ago, I was only running three or four times a week.  On the days I wasn’t running, I spent up to 90 minutes on a stationary bike.  As I’ve added more running days, they’ve replaced the bike workouts.  Now when I ride the bike, it’s usually a 20-30 minute workout.  These make good recovery workouts.  I also sometimes do a short spin as a secondary workout when my main workout is a run.

Race Report: 2014 Peachtree City 50K

Today I ran the Peachtree City 50K race.  I did this race as part of a weekend double with the Soldier Marathon.  This was the third time I’ve done this race, and it was the second consecutive year that I did it after running the Soldier Marathon.

The Peachtree City 50K is sponsored by the Darkside Running Club.  I’ve been a member of the Darkside since 2007, and this is the sixth time I’ve done one of their races.  Besides the Peachtree City 50K, I’ve done the Darkside 8 Hour race twice.  I’ve also run one of their marathons.

The race started at 7:30, with race morning packet pickup from 6:00 to 7:00.  I was staying at Hilton Garden Inn, which had a breakfast starting at 6:00.  I got up at 5:00, so I could get ready first and then eat breakfast before heading to the race.  I don’t usually eat much on the morning of a race, but this was an ultra, and I was depleted from my race on Saturday.

The race started and finished in Luther Glass Park.  The parking lot isn’t large enough to accommodate all the runners, but there’s a shopping center across the street with plenty of parking.

The weather was similar to Saturday.  It was 37 degrees at the start, but would warm into the 60s by the time I finished running.  There wasn’t any wind.  It was going to get sunny, but most of the course is shaded.  When I got to Luther Glass Park, there was wispy fog on the pond.

Peachtree City has a network of golf cart paths, and many of the residents get around town in golf carts.  The course was a loop that strung together several of the golf cart paths.  Most of the course looked like this.

You could tell when you were nearing the start/finish area by looking for this white gazebo.

At the end of each lap, we did a short out-and-back.  Including the out-and-back, the loop was 5.18 miles.  We did six laps for the 50K.  There was also a 25K race that did the same loop three times.

At times you could see houses, but other times you only saw trees.  We also ran by a lake and a few ponds.  It feels more like a nature run than a race through a city.  Where the paths crossed major streets, there were tunnels.  You seldom saw the street.  If you don’t know the area, you might not have any idea which street it you were running under.  There were only two places where we crossed streets at street level.  One was a residential street with very little traffic.  The other was a two lane road where you had to watch for cars.  One of the aid stations was located right by this crossing, so the volunteers can look out for you.

The aid stations had water, Gatorade, and a variety of food.  There were also port-o-potties at each aid station.

My legs were pretty stiff after my all-out effort on Saturday, so I didn’t know if I could run fast enough to stay warm in the early laps.  In addition to shorts and a short-sleeve tech T-shirt, I wore gloves, a warm headband suitable for winter weather, and a light-weight jacket.  I kept a gear bag in the start/finish area, so I could change clothes during the race.

I knew I would be slow, so I didn’t have any time goals.  I knew from past experience that I had a realistic chance of placing in my age group, so my goal was to win an age group award.

There aren’t any mile markers, but I didn’t bother wearing a Garmin watch.  I didn’t need to monitor my pace.  Seeing my time at the end of each lap was more than enough.

I knew I was in trouble when the race started and I couldn’t run in a straight line.  My legs were so stiff that I wobbled sideways and bumped into another runner.  I went out slowly and my legs eventually loosened up.  I didn’t try to run fast.  I ran at a pace that felt sustainable, knowing it was going to be slow.

I didn’t know how many runners were in my age group or who they were.  I just ran my own race and hoped it would be good enough.  Mostly, I didn’t want to wear myself out in the early laps.

I wasn’t going to look at my watch until the halfway mark, but there was a digital clock in the start/finish area.  I finished my first lap in 49 minutes and change.  That put me on pace for a five hour finish, but I knew I might slow down.

Although the course is mostly shaded, there are a few spots where you can feel the sun.  Midway through my second lap, the sun felt good, and I could tell it was starting to warm up.  After that lap, I stopped to remove my jacket and swap my warm headband for a light running hat.  Even before stopping, I could see that I was a few minutes slower in that lap.  Changing clothes cost me another minute or two.

I also slowed down a bit in my third lap.  I reached the halfway mark in 2:36 and change.  I hadn’t had any solid food yet, so I walked for a few minutes while eating a chocolate chip cookie.

Midway through my fourth lap, I made a bathroom stop.  Not surprisingly that lap was also a little bit slower.  It was continuing to get warmer, so I took off my gloves.

At times, I felt like I might be able to run faster, but I wanted to wait until the last two laps.  It’s easy to run out of gas in a 50K race.  I’m used to pacing myself for 26.2 miles, and those extra five miles make a difference.  With two laps to go, I decided to pick up my pace a little bit.  My hope was to run faster in the last lap.  It didn’t work out as I hoped.  Midway through my fifth lap, I felt myself running out of gas.  When I reached the end of that lap, it was slower than the previous four.

All through the last lap, I was struggling to keep moving.  There wasn’t any hope of picking up the pace.  I was just trying to get to the finish.  When I reached the out-and-back section, there weren’t any other runners near me.  There wasn’t any need for a finishing kick.  There was nobody I could catch, and there was nobody who could catch me.

As I came within sight of the finish, the volunteers were all cheering.  I did pick up the pace at the very end, but it wasn’t going to make a difference in the standings.  I finished in 5:25:41.  That’s a disappointing time for a 50K, but it’s faster than I ran last year, when I did the same double with a pulled hamstring.

After I finished, race director Heather Shoemaker, gave me my trophy.  I won my age group.  I guess persistence pays off.

Heather also gave me a Darkside Running Club bag with my finisher medal and a Darkside Running Club coffee mug.

Someday, I should do this race with fresh legs and try to run fast.  It’s a paved course with no major hills.  It should be a fast course if you haven’t already trashed your legs the day before.