For you folks who do road races every weekend

I even see some guys that do multiple races on the same day.

1) Why? The idea of racing it is that you give max effort. If you do that 5k at 7 am, how can you do another 5k at 9am and give a decent effort?

2) Don't you have a life? Is your ego so fragile that you need THAT much confirmation? You need yet another trinket on the book shelf?

3) How can you afford it? Seriously, when even the most basic low level 5k is $30 that adds up.

4) When do you train?

I'm 20 years old and usually do a race every weekend in the fall with my roommates. We generally run around 70 mpw with 3 quality days (workouts) on Tuesday, Thursday, and generally Saturday races.

Depending on the prize money or importance of the race, we decide our race plan. For less important races, we either run it as a v02 max workout and do another mile 15 minutes after the race or just use it as a tempo. For more important races, we don't really hold back.

As for the money it takes to run these races, a job during the summer helps. Also, most of those costs are negated by prize money.

The better question is: Why do you spend so much money on running? Even a 5K road race seems to cost at least $30. I stopped doing road races because they are overpriced. I also found most local road races to be horribly uncompetitive. I live in a big metro area with over 2 million, but a lot of the 5Ks around here are won in around 18 minutes. I ran 15:41 in the last road race I did. It was good enough for second (behind a 15:35), but third place was almost 19 minutes. The first place guy and I could have saved our money and just run a hard 5k together. Why waste the money?

support the races. it's good for the sport. spend the thirty bucks there instead of at the bar that night.

gym halpert wrote:

support the races. it's good for the sport. spend the thirty bucks there instead of at the bar that night.

If I went to the bar I would agree with you. Going to the bar is a huge waste of money.

I don't think the OP asked how you paid for races. I think he asked how you prepared for them.

A lot of people that do road races every weekend are not running all out efforts. Especially the bit older crowd. They like the socializing with friends while getting in a decent faster paced run.

0101PC01 wrote:

I don't think the OP asked how you paid for races. I think he asked how you prepared for them.

I didn't misunderstand his question. I was simply raising another question. I wasn't asking how they paid for them. I was asking why they were spending all that money on them. Seems like throwing away money, especially if you aren't doing an all out effort.

Cost is a fair question. While I can occasionally win some money or gift cards, I am also work part-time for a local running store chain and can get discounts on racing that way. All in all, it costs me around $10 to race, I figure, and I only race about 2 times a month.

Plus, I enjoy the social aspect a lot.

Ok, I'll bite...

It's been a long time, but the first few years out of college I averaged over 50 races/year. This was a combination of running, cycling, triathlons, XC skiing. I would say it was about 20-25 running races, 10-15 triathlons, 5-7 bike races and 5-10 XC ski races. To answer the OP's questions first; I had a solidly structured weekly plan that changed with the seasons. The bulk of the year, late March through early December, I did a track workout on Weds, brick workout (bike/run combo) on either Mon or Fri depending on if I was racing Sat or Sun (Sat race = brick on Mon, Sun race = brick on Fri). Most of my basic running mileage was at tempo pace. In hindsight I probably trained too hard day in day out. I usually trained with runners, cyclists and skiers who were better than I was so just to hang on with them I had to train pretty hard.

A typical training week in the good weather:

--Mon: 1:45 brick workout (bike 1:00-1:15 run 0:30-0:45)

--Tues: am swim 0:45, pm bike 1:30-2:00 including 0:30 TT

--Weds: pm run 1:10-1:20 including 3-5 miles track intervals

--Thurs: am swim 0:45, pm bike 2:00+ or run 1:00

--Fri: run 0:50-1:00 or bike 1:15-1:30

--Sat: race, or bike 3:00+ or run 1:15-1:30 and/or swim 1:00

--Sun: same as Sat

Totals were around 8000m swimming, 150-225 biking, 45-55 running. Spring and fall to get ready for marathons (and due to more limited daylight hours) I'd cut the biking down to 1 or 2 rides/week and bump the running up to low 60's. A lot of weeks I'd do back to back 13's, like Tues/Weds, at a pretty high pace. Winter I'd split pretty evenly between running, cycling indoors on the trainer, or swimming, maybe get out once/week to ski after work and once on the weekend. I was doing this schedule off an 8-5 office job.

I was never very talented, but I do believe through hard work and staying healthy I got about as much out of my limited talent as I could have.

I never held back in races, was too competitive to do that. A lot of times I blew up and just survived to finish, but I can't remember ever going into a race thinking I was just going to go 90%. At times we did 2 races in a day, or a triathlon on both Sat and Sun, but even then I don't remember (and my finish times bear this out) going easier in one of those races.

There wasn't anything ego driven about racing so much, I wasn't good enough to bring much home in the way of awards. A lot of it was my old XC coach raced a lot so it rubbed off on me. He'd call and say he was going to a race somewhere did I want to come along and I'd say why not. Plus racing was fun, it was a good bunch of guys around here. Plus I was getting better; I didn't start running competitively until JR year of college so I didn't have this deep pool of pr's from high school to compare to. Plus a lot of it was I liked seeing different places so why not schedule a race there and then you're committed to traveling.

After about 5 years out of college I got more selective but still raced 20-25 times/year. I cut out the cycling and XC ski racing. Also cut back on my cycling training miles around that time. Then I got into golf and got obsessive about that for about 5 years but that's another story...

Thank you for the replies, guys. I appreciate it.

I average about 60-70 races per year. The occasional mid-week races and almost always 1-2 races on the weekend and sometimes 3.

I average 70-90 mpw. I don't eat out. I don't go to bars. I have a stable, well paying job with flexible hours. I get comp'd entry fees on about 20-30 races. I get free shoes and tons of crap from winning races.

I plan every workout, but will change based on how I feel. I do intervals and tempos every other week, usually joining some other track folks. I run 100% every race. But if I raced earlier that day or the day before my recovery is not always great and my performance will suffer.

I win about half my races and contest most of the others (top 5) if it's a bigger/competitive field.

I judge my performance by trying to PR from the year before on the same course. I don't see how folks try to build up for a big goal race. I have good races, I have bad races, but I'm always racing.

I use weekend races as my hard (I paced to refer to Daniels) workout for the week. Tuesday was usually longer tempo run on cruise intervals with speed or hills on Thursday.

you must be one of the workout warriors on my club team who "is not in race shape right now" and wants to "get in some workouts because i don't want to race if i'm not fit". talk about fragile egos...

Aquafina wrote:

I even see some guys that do multiple races on the same day.

1) Why? The idea of racing it is that you give max effort. If you do that 5k at 7 am, how can you do another 5k at 9am and give a decent effort?

2) Don't you have a life? Is your ego so fragile that you need THAT much confirmation? You need yet another trinket on the book shelf?

3) How can you afford it? Seriously, when even the most basic low level 5k is $30 that adds up.

4) When do you train?

The US needs to adopt the continental European approach to road races. A basic road race is €2-5 (even with a shirt sometimes, or else a couple € more). You can easily do one every week just for fun without even interest in racing.

So, name some of the Soapbox Derbies you've won .

How do you do it? wrote:

I've been running 3 years, 35 years old, run 5K in 16:45, average about 60 miles a week.

I know a lot of you run road races every weekend. Can you please tell me how you structure your training during the week?

-Do you plan any workouts or is it all spontaneous?

-Do you even bother with intervals or tempos?

-How many miles a week do you average?

-Do you hold back on your races, or do 90% effort?

Thanks

2 quality workouts plus the race is the basic formula

My typical week (Daniel's I pace and R pace):

M - 5x1000 (I pace) 4x300 4x200 (R pace)

T - 4-6 mile steady run

W - 8x 300M hill, 4x300 4x200 (all R pace)

T - 4-6 mile steady run

F - 0-4 miles easy

S - Race + 5K cooldown. Or 10 mile long run if no race.

S - steady run

40 year old with 50 to 60 hour/week job running my own business, ran 18:32 this year on 30-40 miles a week.

I "taper" before an important race by cutting my quality workouts in half.

My Wednesday workout is "adjustable" in that if I'm not recovered enough, I'll just do them at I pace so that I'm not overtrained come race day. Same deal with Thursday and Friday in that I'll ease those days down to as little as 2 miles a day if I still feel overtrained. Usually this only happens the week following a mud run race, an all uphill race, or all comers meet where I run more than 5 events.

During my "recharge month", I back the paces up so I pace is done at T pace, R pace is done at I pace. This helps me avoid burn out and I'm not a big fan of just doing LSD.

The only "holding back" is deciding whether to kick hard in the end (and risk pulling a hammy). Otherwise for 95% of the race is run at 5k race effort. Admittedly I'll wear a costume for some events like 4th of July, mud runs, but I'm still running hard for an age group medal.

As stated above the $30 fee is cheaper than blowing your money at a club ($20 cover, $10 drinks x 2-3, $10 late night meal. And then double that if you're with a chick). Plus an easy pick up tactic these days is to throw on pair of Vibrams and someone will ask you about them (but alas I'm married).

Why do it? Why not? "Testing yourself", the comradery of racing against the "usual guys", hearing your name for the awards (that NEVER gets old), networking/marketing (I advertise my business on a shirt I wear at all the races). I also feels that it develops a degree of mental toughness as you have to adapt to variables in race conditions (weather, delayed starts, crowds, no warm up due to lack of port-a-potties, etc).

Sat) Race 5k-10k

Sun) Long run 10-15 miles

Mon) Rest

Tue) AM easy 4-6 miles

PM speed work at track

Wed) med run 7-10 miles

Thu) Rest

Fri) easy 4-6 miles

40 - 50 miles per week in 5 days. Fresh all the time. Race hard trying to get hardware/$

steve "red" wrote:

Sat) Race 5k-10k

Sun) Long run 10-15 miles

Mon) Rest

Tue) AM easy 4-6 miles

PM speed work at track

Wed) med run 7-10 miles

Thu) Rest

Fri) easy 4-6 miles

40 - 50 miles per week in 5 days. Fresh all the time. Race hard trying to get hardware/$

Steve, what kind of times do you run off that training?