by Jeff Symonds
Less than one month until race day! This is the time when we as athletes start to feel our pre-race nervousness escalate. It is perfectly natural to feel like now is the time to do a crazy amount of training. Resist that temptation and stay committed to your training plan. If you really feel the need to work harder, then work harder at eating well, sleeping and recovering between your workouts. You can also work harder on perfecting your pre-race routine and mental training.
Have you ever heard the saying “never try anything new on race day?” Well now is the time to try those things! You want to test out everything you can to make sure race day goes as smooth as possible. I like to use my Sunday long run as a great chance to experiment with my race day routine. You want to practice with the exact high carbohydrate breakfast you are going to have race morning and figure out how early you need to eat that breakfast. You want to make sure that whatever you eat fuels your workout and keeps you out of the porta potty. You also want to practice with the nutrition and hydration you are going to consume during the race. I recommend one Powergel for every 45 minutes you plan to be running and wash each gel down with at least 250ml of water.
I also use the exact clothing and shoes I plan to race in in order to make sure there is no chafing or discomfort. Nothing looks more painful then the grimace of athlete suffering from chafing! Only by practising can you figure out the small places where you might want to use body glide or Vaseline. Plus, when I lace up my racing shoes the Asics HyperSpeeds 6’s, I am guaranteed to have a great session!
If you can, it is a great idea to get out and run sections of the course. The better you know the course the more confident you will be on race day. If you can’t make it out to the beautiful UBC Campus or stunning Jericho Beach, choose a run that mimics the race course conditions. Practice running downhill and the mental aspect of a point-to-point run.
Most people have a physical game plan and know exactly what pace they want to hold for every portion of their race. I always create a mental game plan and plan out exactly what I want to be thinking of during every portion of my race. By creating a mental game plan you will already know what thoughts you want to have, and should have, as opposed to letting race day excitement and fatigue determine your thoughts for you. Often times I will use landmarks as cues to predetermined thoughts. An example being that every time I see a speed limit sign I think, “Alright, going fast feeling good!” A key component of my mental game plan is mantras. With mantras you are basically repeating the same thing to yourself over and over and over again. They help keep you focused on the task and keep negative thoughts from creeping in. My mantras are often technical cues or related to pacing and rhythm. I always think: “Re-lax, fly-ing, your pace, negative split.”
The last and most important thing I do a month before a big race is to be really nice to my significant other. I clean up my cereal boxes and watch a few extra chick flicks because I know I need some points banked for when the dreaded taper tantrums hit on race week!
See you on the start line!
Asics athlete Jeff Symonds was the winner of this year’s Ironman Asia-Pacific Championship. He also placed 3rd at the 2011 World Championships and is a great ambassador of the sport!
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