Of course I had to have a great weekend anthem for the long car ride and fast race. Is there any reason I shouldn't listen to this song over and over again?
Lots of FRESH snow on the drive home.
For the inaugural year, Brookshire's did a great job setting up a challenging course and bringing in vendors and a fast field. I've never raced a 15k before and this one was a doozy. I ended up 9th overall after a solid effort and a hard run.
My results aside, I was reflecting after the race about how I would have liked to go faster (typical post-race musings for your average triathlete) and it reminded me that racing is a skill that has to be practiced. I went into this event with about two weeks of "qualify" running in my legs. Meaning, I had just started including some interval work and tempo's into my training after a little bit longer build up in my base/strength phase then I normally do. I needed this hard effort though to test my limits and get a good snapshot of where my fitness was at. I also needed to get some good hurt on like I wouldn't normally hurt in training. I started thinking about what an excellent tool racing can be if utilized effectively in a training program.
Some reasons that racing can be beneficial to your training:
-It provides an exciting break from the normal rigors of training. Training throughout the winter months can get quite tedious (See my post about the winter blues) and including a race or multiple races gives you something exciting to look forward to on the weekend. It's a chance to see friends and do something social while also earning your first free t-shirt for the year.
-Excellent way to benchmark test. Testing is important to mark your fitness and track progress. A race can be an excellent way to test your fitness and establish new benchmark paces for training. This 15k tells me exactly where my threshold heart rate and pace is for the run at this moment. Look around in your area for a Masters swim meet you can do to test your swimming. I participated in the One-Hour Postal Challenge in January. It is one of the most miserable experiences you can image in a pool (swim as hard as you can for an hour). BUT, it told me exactly what my threshold pace was AND I was able to see improvement from when I did the hour swim last year. If you use power on the bike you can find a local time trial to participate in.
-Practice pushing yourself. Like I mentioned above, racing is a learned skill. Suffering takes practice. A single sport event can be a great way to see how far you can push yourself when you don't have any other sports to worry about. You think you're swimming hard at the start of a triathlon? Try competing in a 200 or 500 yard freestyle and see how hard you can REALLY swim. You think your legs hurt on the bike? Try racing an open 40k time trial or any bike race. Any race is a chance to push yourself to new levels and challenge your body to go harder than it's gone before.
I'm not a big fan of "training races." I think that in general, if you sign up for a race you should go out there and give it your best effort on that day. Whether you're tapered or tired see what your body will give you on the day.
-It's great training. As long as you make sure and include the appropriate amount of recovery following a race, racing will help push your fitness up a level. Different types of races take different types of recovery. Running a marathon or competing in an Ironman doesn't always help your fitness a lot (depending on your race goals for the year and current fitness level) because they take more time to recovery from during which you miss other valuable training. A hard 5k or 10k however is an excellent form of speed work that you will recover from pretty quickly and can usually jump back into normal training pretty quickly.
Cautionary Note: Everyone is different and has different goals for their training and racing. Racing is another TOOL to use in training when looking at a bigger picture or end goal in mind. The 15k I completed in was an excellent benchmark for my current fitness and I was able push myself a lot harder than I might in a normal tempo or threshold run. I don't recommend racing every weekend and forgoing the training side of training.
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