What did you do the day before and the day of your best race?

A healthy dose of sex worked for me (and her).

The night before my best race was our senior prom. Three friends and I had no dates and got there way too early with no plans. We ate dinner at Wendy's and danced the night away. Got up early-ish the next day and went to church. Had black coffee, a hot dog, a cookie, and some fruit for lunch.
Not ideal at all and I was pretty specific about my pre-meet routine leading up to this. Sometimes the weird works and I always tell myself that I could have done better w/ ideal conditions.

My day before and day of for my best race were so atypical for me, but I was so f'ing fit, that it didn't even make a difference.

Day before I was at a family event in which I ate steadily throughout the day. Then I went to drive out to where I was racing and started having car issues. I eventually had a buddy of mine come rescue me and drive me out. I got to where I needed to go at 3am, and proceeded to pass out on top of my friend's bed.

The day of I woke up at 6:00am after 3 hours of sleep, and did a shakeout run around the block. I think I had a powerbar after the shakeout for breakfast. Then I dealt with the logistical nightmare of getting to a big, big city race, barely making it in time to do pre-race rituals. But the hay was in the barn, and when the gun went off, I ran out of my head and had an amazing performance.

Just goes to show that if you do the work beforehand, you could almost get away with anything the day before, and day of, and still have a good race.

if you are fit you can do anything the day before and it won't matter...

Jogged 2.5 miles and felt tired. The three days before that had been hard sessions, including 16x440 in 73 w/90s and a 15 mile run @ 7:20 pace (with hills). Dropped my 2-mile PR from 10:22 to 10:00.

Ran a 400 time trial in 60 seconds the day before. The next day I blasted a 4:34 mile.

2 mile warm up and 4 x 200m at race pace.

I don't put much stock in pre-race routines. I used to try to go to bed early, eat certain foods, all that stuff. But my 2nd best HM (1:19:46) was run about 40 minutes after eating half a large pizza. It's a long story as to why I was eating so close to race time, but I thought I would have major cramps and feel terrible. I felt great. Lots of energy, alert and positive thoughts throughout.

Even more ridiculous, I ran a 5k in the hot sun the morning after drinking heavily all night, followed by a night of almost zero sleep at a new gf's apartment. I remember sitting there on the bed at 8am with a large bottle of Gatorade, head spinning, trying to decide if it was even worth going. I finally did, and ran 17:06, tying my PR set only weeks before. My head was pounding the whole race. I actually felt better after.

Don't ask me to explain it, but I often run really well after drinking heavily the night prior. Maybe it relaxes me and I don't waste nervous energy.

I used to believe heavily in having a routine before races, but once I began having to travel across the country for races, it became impossible to really have the same routine. My best race, I had to catch a plane down the day before because of academic conflicts--the flight was canceled because of thunderstorms and I got rerouted to ended up getting in at 11 o'clock then had to drive an hour and a half to get to the hotel. The only place that was open was little caesars pizza--ate a $5 pizza went to bed in the hotel, woke up late had the free hotel breakfast raced and got a massive PR in the mile that afternoon.

day before: easy run, school, easy run at practice
day of: easy run, school, race.

PR'd by 7 seconds in the mile the day after losing a 5k in the final sprint of a race that I should have won. I was pissed about 2nd place and ate/drank like crap that night, slept hard, legs felt incredible the next day and I was in a rage mode. The 5k was an important race and the mile was not, but I still have that mile PR.

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rage mode from losing wrote:

PR'd by 7 seconds in the mile the day after losing a 5k in the final sprint of a race that I should have won. I was pissed about 2nd place and ate/drank like crap that night, slept hard, legs felt incredible the next day and I was in a rage mode. The 5k was an important race and the mile was not, but I still have that mile PR.

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The night before my best race ever I jerked it hard, ate a bigass bowl of chocolate pudding, peeled exactly three oranges, did not eat them, then rubbed the citric acid onto my body. The day of I recited three poems, did exactly three strides, and jerked it exactly three more times before watching harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban.

Mainly, I'd try to just focus on the goals that I had and stayed relax prior to the race. Routine or no-routine. I believe that I had my best races when I didn't anything on my mind as far as time goals, places, and paces. Other races I didn't do well at I had a lot of those exact things hinder me because I tense and stressed too. Big picture: Stress can cause unwanted anxiety. The day prior and day of the race should just be a time where everything you have done has prepared you for a race and that any material, detailed specific goal like running under 25:00 for the 8k will get you anywhere if you don't relax and take the pressure off your self. Beer is my enemy because of my depression but other than that I can say I've gotten better at relaxing.

What qualifies as your best performance?

Farted like nobodys business

Like others in this thread I had a very good race--maybe not my absolute best, but very good--after a night with little or no sleep. The race was scheduled for 6am in a city a couple hours away, so I had to take an intercity bus the evening before, hang around the bus terminal for several hours, then take intracity transit to get to the race site. I was just amazingly (compared to what I'd expected) fluid in the race itself--ran out of gas a little in the last 10k (it was a 50), but overall pretty much surprised myself.

Something that worked for a lot of my students who were scheduled to race ~5k: the day before, they did a race-type warmup, then 3 x 600 at their projected pace for the next day's race, just to lock in the feel of that pace. Good but not complete recoveries between reps.

The day before I ran my best time was the day I was actually supposed to run the race in the first place. The meet was rained out and we had to reschedule. So I come back to the meet the next day and I expect to do horrible. I had been out for three weeks and had hardly recovered, but my coach wanted me to have a chance to break 10. I was one of the favorites to win, but I was all nerves and just basically sat on the infield worrying all day just like the previous. Then I started the race and it went out fast and I was in dead last at 400-800. Somehow I found myself with the leaders 4 laps later and I hung on just enough to run a 9:52, and I could not have been more pleased, although I only got fourth.