Let's say you have a race in the early afternoon or late morning, we will take 11:30 am as an example. If the race isn't too far away, you might get up at about 8 am, 4 hours before the start. You could be sitting down, chilling for a while, and have a breakfast, maybe also doing some dynamic stretches. Let's say you then drive to the race area an hour before the race, and you start warming up at 10:40, with an easy run of a few miles, some more dynamic stretches thrown in, and finally your strides. Most of the time I am in this situation, I find that I still feel weak and sluggish at the start of a race, and I get left in the dust at the start. I may eventually catch some people later in the race, but I normally finish thinking that I could have done better. After a few minutes I might feel as if I haven't even done a race at all.
But let's say that instead of the above, you get up at 7 am, and go for a walk of maybe 30-45 minutes, and then from 8am onwards, just do everything else the same, do you think it would help your race? I have been thinking about this. Sometimes I find that going for a walk a few hours before an afternoon/evening training session, I feel stronger in the session. Does anybody here do anything like this, and what results/changes do you notice? I want to get an early night before my next race, and go for a nice and relaxing, early morning walk. I'm curious to know if any people who are typically "slow starters" have adopted this approach, so that they can improve their overall race performance.