Your best season ever Part 4: Final race prep

Let’s assume for a minute that you have followed all the advice of the last 3 newsletters.

1. You built a foundation of health to train from.
2. You built a base of training specific to your race goals.
3. You dialled in your race-specific prep.

The final stage is fine-tuning all this training for your race.

The most specific block of your season

This final block of your training is where we turn the fitness you built into a race-specific performance.

This is typically the shortest block of your training (timeline 4-12 weeks).

We can keep it short and focused because the real “work” should already be done.

Most athletes are too focused on the final race prep and missed the importance of the previous 3 blocks of training.

How to know you’re ready for a race prep

The biggest thing I want you to take away from this letter is that there are better times than others to take on big races.

If you’re missing your key sessions and might be dealing with an injury, it’s not the time to step up to a startline.

We want this to be a rewarding experience not a suffer-fest.

Here are some keys that you’re ready to take on a big race:

• regularly covering the duration of your race
• consistent weekly volume
• no niggles or injuries
• stable readiness metrics
• low life stress

If you can check off these 5 things then you’re going to have an easier time building towards your race.

3 things you need to accomplish in your final prep

When it comes time to prepare for a big race there are 3 things we need to accomplish:

• final pacing and interval prep
• final nutrition testing
• gear testing

This is in addition to maintaining your current training of the last block and dialling in the long-day (brick day).

Let’s break down each aspect:

Final pacing and interval prep

Taking what you learned from the last block about threshold and tempo pacing we should have a good idea of what to expect on race day for you.

We can now use that pacing in our longer training sessions and get really comfortable at that pace.

Races are not a magical time where you will be faster than in training. You might save a few minutes over the course of the race.

But my goal is always that you go in confident in reaching the finish line at your target pace.

Nutrition and fuel testing

During your long days at pace we also want to do final nutrition testing.

5 things here:

1. are you fuelling enough for the effort?
2. can you take in the fuel easy enough?
3. can you carry it all?
4. does your body digest it?
5. what’s your back-up plan?

These questions have saved me a lot of effort on race day by having a simple strategy that my body can tolerate.

If you need specific strategies here I would chat with a dietician (preferably with enough time to test things.)

Gear testing

The final thing you want to be testing is any gear.

Particularly anything that is new for this race.

I have a rule I always stick to:

nothing new on race day.

Remove the stress of chaffing, improper fitting gear, uncomfortable bike positions, etc.

Make sure you’re testing every element of your gear stack prior to racing.

The long-day (or brick day)

How do you accomplish all this testing?

The key session for this block is going to be a race-specific long-day. (If you’re training more for short-course it can be a repeat brick day).

The session:

That’s all for today!

Chandler

Thanks for being here! If you're new here I'm Chandler an endurance coach and physiotherapist. Each week I send a letter about sustainable endurance training or triathlon rehab.

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