As obvious as this blog post title sounds, preparation is something that we all can continue to educate ourselves on. Preparation is the key to succeeding, winning and finishing.
What I wanted to do here is share my first half marathon road race experience with you and give you some insight into what I learned. The biggest mistake I see in my athletes is that they are doing the wrong practice, incorrect lifting, and just overall poor training. Training specificity has it's place and time, when when you get that wrong, it can severely derail your progress toward goals.
Training Schedule
One of the biggest reasons for my successful completion of the race was a good training program and a solid timeline for when I needed to get it done. If you're a first time racer/runner, I would highly suggest looking at Hal Higdon's Website to attain a free and useful training plan. In training for this half, I was able to spend twelve weeks building up my endurance, training my slow twitch muscle fibers, and learning my body's pacing. This all led to a solid run on race day, an 8:15 pace for 13.1 miles, not bad for a power athlete, which brings me to point number two, training for your sport.
Train For Your Sport
For all my life I have been more of a power athlete, and still really only compete in sports that allow me to use my agility, power and leverage, not my long distance endurance. Even as a child I excelled at baseball, flag football, and goal keeping in soccer (all fast twitch muscle recruitment). As a basketball player I had skills but didn't have the long term endurance you need to play a hard 7 minutes at a time. Right now for example I play competitive golf and for the better part of my life before that I played soccer, but more specifically I was goalkeeper, so power and bursts of quick energy is how my body is trained. Well how does that relate to this? It is key to understand your body's composition because it will allow you to see where your weaknesses are in your sport or a sport you want to play, in this case for me, it was long distance running.
The twelve weeks of training were spent primarily on long distance running, increasing distances each week and mixing up the type of runs in order to help my body and muscles learn about the impact on running. Needless to say my body was able to adjust, I became a decent long distance runner (all things considered) and I can owe it all to proper training.
HUGE MISTAKE MADE: There is one crucial error I made though, and that was leaving any kind of power, rotational, stability, and strength training basically on the shelf. Because of this, I lost a lot of what I had built up in my golf game. I lost a lot of power in my longer clubs, some swing speed, and the ability to go after the ball like I had used to. I felt as if I lost some control of my body because of the way my muscles were being trained and not compensated to fit 'my sport'. Luckily I'm back in that training mode and my body is responding fast, so I'm just praying I can get back to hitting my 295yard bomb when I need it in my upcoming tournaments.
The bottom line here, after a bit of a ramble session, is that you need to train your muscles for what you will be expecting out of them. Train for your goals. If your goal is to run a half marathon or a whole one, and you are spending 4 days a week on a recumbent bike or treadmill for 30-40 minutes of "cardio", you are in for a rude wake up call come race day. On the opposite, if you're a power athlete and you're known for your ability to change directions and speeds fast, and your training is running long distance to 'get in shape', you will soon see the repercussions of the way you're training your body and will start to see major declines in your performance.
Week Of Race, Day Before and Day Of, Eating Habits
I know all you ladies out there reading this are already thinking no way, if he says eat carbs I'm not doing it, just a big fat storer. Well ladies, then good luck pushing your body to where you want it to be without fuel. Here's a good example, we all know food is fuel for you body, after all, calories=heat=energy. Pretty simple concept. If you continue to starve your body of the fuel it needs, or put the wrong fuel in it, it will break down fast. When a car starts running low on gas, the infamous gas light comes on. When your body is running on low, our gas light comes on, it's called hunger. Fuel your body so it can perform. I CAN'T STRESS HOW IMPORTANT FOOD IS TO YOUR SYSTEM. During the week of training try to start taking in some extra calories, preferably more in the form of carbs the days leading up to the race. The night before consume a huge helping of good whole wheat carbs from pastas, bread, and fruit. Your hydration is key here too. Drinking a nalgene the half hour before you work out will not hydrate you, but drinking plenty of water through out each and every day, starting and ending your day with a glass or two, will lead to proper hydration. So after you're carbed up and have gotten some good sleep, have your first pre race meal about 3-4 hours before race time. I did a bagel with peanut butter along with a banana. Then about 60-90 minutes before your race I learned that it is beneficial to have another small meal (so you're still with me here, big meal early, then small meal leading up) like a cliff bar or power bar (both are great for lasting energy for workouts and races). Once you finish your activity, refuel ASAP. A good mix of protein, carbs, and fats will do perfectly. Your body is starving for replenishment at this point, the worst thing you could do is let it run on empty. This will lead to a proper recovery, which is just as important for your body as the preparation is. Let your body build itself back up before you break it down again. I know it seems like you're taking steps backwards but really you are allowing your body to take bigger steps forward.
If you include all of these little helpful tips for your training, I have no doubt you will be successful with whatever your sport may be. Please remember, getting into shape is a sport, it's called fitness. Train for your sport, train hard, train strong, and train smart.
