Hi everyone! Welcome back to my view as a student-athlete! This week I will be talking about my pre-race preparations for race week!
This week, I will be traveling with the track team to George Mason, and I am running the 5k. Typically, the week of racing looks a little different than a normal training week, so I wanted to dedicate this blog to that preparation.
My week started with a run on Monday morning before classes, and then a double in the afternoon followed by hill repeats, and lift. Mondays are our easy days, and I make sure to stretch and include band exercises before running.
On Tuesday, I had a workout at the track, so I warmed up, stretched, ran the workout, and then followed it by a cool down. Typically, we would have two workouts in a normal training week, but because I was racing on Friday, I just had one workout.
Wednesday is our med-long day, which is a medium long run. We also had ploys, core and hurdle walk-overs before the run. Because I am prone to injury, I cross-trained part of my med-long with the stationary bike, and I ran the other portion.
On Thursday, we had pre-meet, which is always a 3-mile "shakeout" run, followed by stretching, and strides at the track.
Friday was race-day, and on days that I am racing, I try to keep my daily routine as normal as possible up until I leave for the meet. Because I was not racing until after 8 p.m., I was still able to go to my classes, and get some homework done before leaving the Mount at 3:30 p.m. Once I get to any meet, I like to set my backpack down and relax for a little bit up until around an hour before my race, and then I will go out for my warm up, get my numbers and stretch.
Then, on Saturday, I had a nice and easy long run--which is my favorite run of the week (besides racing).
In addition to pre-race runs/workouts, I also try to get focused and excited for my race. I am always pretty nervous before I step on the track, but I remind myself that it is all for fun and I can trust my body and training! I also remind myself that teammates inspire me every day, and we are in it together:).