Running races

by TJ Tuttamore
(Pemberville, Ohio USA)

How should one incorporate more races during the 100 day marathon ?

"Hi Marius,
Just got the program and I love the philosophy! Thank You.

I wanted to ask how much racing is too much racing during the plan? Will racing more than the scheduled three races affect performance at all?"

Answer: Hi TJ and thanks for the question. I touched abit on this topic in this answer concerning more speed sessions in the 100 day plan : speed training

Much of that applies to running races as well.

You can certainly add more races in there if you like BUT you have to do that instead of the hardest session of a given week. In addition to that, you want to finish off with the 5 x 20/20 after races for a faster recovery time.

The point about spacing the really long marathon specific sessions away from other intense work (like races / speed trainings are) also applies here. Which means that if you race on a weekend, you'll need at least 4 days until say a 40 min + 40 min + 40 min hard marathon specific session.

In between there you can have a "normal" hard session though (say if a 15 x 45 sec running is planned that week)- you just want to be careful with the spacing of the absolute hardest marathon specific runs.

In addition to this, be very careful in the tapering phase. In these weeks, racing too much will likely have a negative effect on your marathon time, especially if you are just about to peak (you leave the good results in the pre-races instead of the marathon itself)

Wish you all the best with your marathon training !

Kind regards,
Marius

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