This is February 24, 2024.
This is your race day.
Race Days early in the long season are about testing your fitness, trying new tactics, and shaking up your daily training.
Warm-up,
30 minutes of running, slow to moderate,
4-6 x 150m stride outs,
Race 800m, 1000m, 3000m, one of those.
If you can not find a track race, then do a 5k on the roads, flat, and push it hard.
20-minute cooldown, moderate to easy,
stretch,
get dry clothes on,
hydrate,
Larry’s Deep Thoughts: Racing a variety of distances now is essential. For example, if you are an 800m racer, do 400m, 4x400m, 1,500m. If you are a 5,000m type, race 1,500m, 3,000m, and 800m. If you are a 10,000m racer, race everything from 800 m to 5,000 m. The more you get the stuffing knocked out of you in shorter distances, the better. I would race 2 miles 6 times during summer and winter, all comers, to keep some speed and have fun races, learning how to do a negative split. In high school, I raced 8-12 times in cross country and 12-16 times in outdoor track. In college, I raced 6 times in cross country, 1 x indoors, and 10-12 times in spring with a focus on a 10,000m effort in April. During summers, I raced almost weekly, 2 miles, 5.8 miles, and a few hilly 10k-12ks before the cross-country season. Most years, 30-35 times a year. Post collegietely, I raced 30-35 times yearly, with one marathon in November or December. I tried 4 marathons in one year, PB the first time, and each time after that, worse.
Author
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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