“A race gives you a true measure of how your fitness is progressing, often forces you to take a few easy days before and after rather than falling into a relentless grind, and can build confidence and motivation as you work toward the goal race.”
One of the questions I often get specific to marathon training is whether or not to race during a marathon build-up. Further, if one does choose to race, how should an athlete approach those efforts?
If you look at our team’s decisions around that question, you will see that we have a number of athletes planning to race the Houston Half Marathon three weeks prior to the Olympic Trials, and we have some that will not be racing at all. So it should come as no surprise that I don’t have a strong yes or no answer to the question. Rather, I believe that there are potential benefits and drawbacks to both racing and to not racing. Each person, in each marathon training cycle, has to make a cost/benefit analysis to determine the best course of action for them.
Generally, I don’t shy away from having people race. A race gives you a true measure of how your fitness is progressing, often forces you to take a few easy days before and after rather than falling into a relentless grind, and can build confidence and motivation as you work toward the goal race. It can be a little tricky in a marathon build-up, as you generally don’t want to cut back your training so much that you’re “fresh” for the race, so you may end up racing on somewhat tired legs. That being said, a few easy days leading in won’t hurt your overall marathon training, and should be sufficient to allow you a successful race.
On the flip side, though, it is also possible to simulate racing in workouts (with sufficient motivation and training partners), to take confidence from the results of those harder efforts, and one can certainly take down weeks or vary training enough to avoid the trap of over-doing things. Ultimately, athletes who already race quite a bit probably don’t have much need to “sharpen the blade” in racing, whereas those who haven’t raced as frequently in recent months may benefit more from a race. Whatever you decide, embrace your approach with confidence, and reap the benefits from your race (or lack thereof) to the best of your ability.
Chris Lundstrom is the head coach of Minnesota Distance Elite – formerly Team USA Minnesota – which includes some of the top distance runners in the USA, including Annie Frisbie, Dakotah Lindwurm, Breanna Sieracki and Joel Reichow.
