First, I’ll speak to the physical. This certainly isn’t rocket science, but racing places an immense stress on the body. No matter how well trained you are, the compounding effect of race-efforts wears you down. Minimizing the physiological breakdown through good recovery becomes absolutely critical. Ironically, “good recovery” for the next race starts before the current race begins. Following a proper fueling plan is absolutely critical not only to your performance in a race this Saturday, but also to your performance in a race next Saturday. The less time your body spends running on near-empty [or in scientific speak, the less glycogen deprivation that occurs] the faster you will bounce back from that effort. What you consume directly after the race is also very important; much like during training, aim to get a good carbohydrate/protein [4 to 1] food into your system immediately after finishing. Chocolate milk works great, and if that is logistically hard, most Powerbar-type products work too. While this seems pretty easy, when the post-race food tent is offering pizza, chocolate milk and Powerbars have a way of becoming much less appealing.
This transitions nicely into my the next point, which is be especially smart with how you treat your body in the 48 hours after finishing a race. I know that personally, after racing, I usually really let loose; we’re talking total crap consumption, in solid and liquid form. This is actually a huge part of a smart annual training/racing plan, and important for both physical and especially mental health. While the natural inclination is to go nuts after finishing a race, this isn’t such a good idea if you are planning on revving things up in full force just 6 to 7 days later. It’s more than OK to celebrate a good performance, but if you are racing consecutively and want to be celebrating the next weekend too, make sure not to do anything tonight that will leave you in the bathroom for over 20 minutes tomorrow morning. This was actually quite hard for me [I give myself a B- here] and has a lot to do with my “do everything 110% personality” which is common amongst so many endurance athletes. It takes a lot of mental strength to hold back after a race, especially when we are literally trained, encouraged to, and in the habit of doing the opposite in most other situations. Be aware of this, think about your next race before you act, and if it’s not just a couple of days later, by all means go nuts!
In the few days between races, strive to find a balance between passive recovery [total off days], active recovery [very easy training], and “stay-sharp” workouts [short and sweet bouts of intensity]. The right mix varies by individual, but the key that holds true across everyone is to have some kind of mix. Also, don’t be wed to a plan. Observe how your body feels, and make real-time tweaks. I often substituted a total off-day for a recovery workout, or the opposite, and if my body didn’t feel great on a day that was meant to include a 20-minute tempo interval, I nixed it. Again, while it sounds easy to do this, scrapping the plan can be hard, especially when it’s the plan that got us to where we are.
You may be noticing a theme, which is maintaining the physical strength needed to race consecutively relies heavily on mental strength. Before touching on that, just a few additional things I have to throw in. Eat lots of fresh green foods [vegetables], which are high in alkaline and work to balance acidity in the body -- very important when so much acid is created from race-efforts. Get a pair of CEP compression socks and wear them often. Of all the things marketed to endurance athletes that are supposed to work but sound suspect, these by far and away “actually work” the best. Probably the smartest $50 I have spent in the past year. Pick one race to be your true priority, and ideally, make it the first one. This comes into play because although you can kind of peak for one month, you really only peak for one day. The easiest way to illustrate this point is through the concept of race-weight. You hit your race weight on week 1, but then, in order to recover to race on weekends 2-4, your training volume and intensity decreases dramatically from what it had been. Meanwhile, if there was ever a time to make sure you are getting sufficient nutrition, this is it, so your caloric intake is going to stay constant, if not go up a little. By the end of week 4, you are likely going to be decently above race weight. No big deal since we are talking about seconds here, but since seconds can matter a lot, build things around a priority race in which you want every second to count.
Now, on to the mental. Instead of getting very long-winded here, I will introduce a foundational premise and offer some pragmatic advice. The mental discipline it takes to race consecutively is enormous. This entails everything from not getting cocky after good outings, to forgetting bad ones, to tempering celebrations, to focusing on each event individually as its own [while still keeping the big picture in mind], to accepting the more-than-usual suffering inherent to racing hard.
Maintaining the mental edge is an enormous challenge, and simply being aware of its importance is the first step to knocking this down. Next, try to create an environment keen to supporting your mental edge. Minimize other stresses to the extent that you can. Since you know how much discipline will be required in this realm of your life, splurge a little in other realms; now is the perfect time to read a stupid book [or just quit reading altogether!], put Rihanna on repeat, or wear only underwear while you walk your dog around the block. Communicate your situation to other key people. This list probably includes significant others, colleagues, friends, family, etc… You can’t expect any of them to be accommodating or supportive if they don’t know where you are coming from. Meditate. The power of mindfulness exercises is huge. I got in the habit of doing 30-minute body scans as often as I could. And when time is tight, there are plenty of good 5-10 breathing meditations that really helped me refocus and cleanse my mind of the anxiety and excitement that comes with racing all the freaking time.
None of this easy and I can’t imagine anyone will be even near perfect. My best advice is probably don’t race consecutively. But, if you find yourself in a situation like I did and want to give things a go, then hopefully revisiting some of the above points will be helpful. And the last thing to remember, unless you are winning nationally recognized high-profile events, the awards are not going to compensate for the race fees…but whatever…rack up that hardware!Until next time, train hard, live hard!
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