When speaking to different runners its interesting to see some love racing and will as much as they can and others dont seem too keen and keep it to a minimum. I have certainly been guilty of over racing expecially while at university where the race would either mean I miss out on important training in the lead up to the main event im training for, or expecting to race well everytime and then run poorly as im so tired from weeks of racing and hard training previously.
My opinion is that 3 or 4 quality races in the 12 week build up to your main event is essential as nothing shows you better at what level you are at than a good race. I cant think of anything worse in preparation than getting to the start line of a marathon (or any race) not knowing what you are capable of say over 10km. Theres no point say going for sub 3 hours for a marathon when you havent run sub 40 minutes for 10k or around 1:24/25 for half marathon...its just unrealistic. Getting a quality 10km and half marathon road race before a marathon would give you the confidence of hitting your target pace on race day aswell as the training benefits these races give you.
Here are a few decent races that are ideal for the lead up to the London Marathon in April:
Eastleigh 10k: http://www.eastleigh10k.hampshire.org.uk/
Bramley 20m or 10m: http://www.readingroadrunners.org/bramley.html
Yeovil half marathon: http://www.totalbuzzevents.com/
1 comment:
Love this post! Agree that it's hard to get a balance between racing commitments (like cross country) and training - even at my basic level. Must be so much harder when you're pushing for a sub 3! So up for bramley though!
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