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Tips For Runners To Be Great on Race Day

By Gary Cooper

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 08Feb2010 Word count: 605 Viewed: 225 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Runners know that in order to improve our times on race day we must stress ourselves in training sessions. Breaking up the training in bits and pieces then on ran day you put it all together. This makes the muscles to grow stronger. Rest must be worked into our program or we'll set ourselves up for injuries. A injuries is a bad thing for runners because if you have to lay off because of an injury, that takes away from training time!

Missing training days ruins our clock time at the finish line. All because we didn't stick to the program. For this very reason many people have a coach or a mentor if you can afford one. However, I never did. When I was able to afford one, by that time I had trained myself for so many years, I didn't need one by then and nor will you.

Long runs or track days must be followed by easy days in which the distance or pace is reduced. Also in addition rest weeks should be worked into your training every third or fourth week. Now this does not mean to stop running, but means light running on your easy week.Every ones easy is different. My easy was a four miler at 7:50 pace, one each week.This gives your muscles a chance to caught up from the slight stressing you must do in order to improve. Some like to say "stepping out" of the box.

Improvement is based on the length of your long runs and the quality of your speed work. By running easy between these two formula runs and one quality pace day will get you in the winners circle more than most. My pace day was a four miler at a 7:00 minute pace. Your pace day is not as fast as a race pace but faster than a long run pace for a controlled distance. Pace days are very important. They teach you and make you to be able to run a faster race pace. All these tips should allow you to recover faster, rebuild muscles stronger and avoid injury.

The skeletal muscle cell is as follows: There is an external membrane, the sarcolemma, inside of which there are bundles of fibers. Also inside the muscle cell are the mitochondria, the power plants of the cell which break down fuel from food into usable energy. Exactly what happens when the muscle is overstressed is generally capable of performing the amounts of work they have been accustomed to during the previous seven to fourteen days.

Your recent training has developed to a certain fitness level. If you push yourself beyond this level, you strain the horses that do all the actual work, the individual muscle cells.

Cells pushed beyond their capacity are damaged with tears in the membranes. The mitochondria within the cells become swollen and glycogen, the fuel stored within the mitochondria, is often almost depleted. In runners terms you see all too often after a race if your limping around several days after wards you pushed yourself too hard! This is very easy to do.

On race day with all the excitement and the thrill of competition, cheering at the finish line, music, fans, you see the picture! But don't...only run your race! Run the race you have trained yourself for and you will recover well so that you can even run a race next weekend if you like. Push yourself too far and you will come up lame every time! You may be off for many weeks, if not months. Follow your on rules.

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