You’ve trained for the last 16 weeks for your marathon, your half-marathon or your 10k race but have you thought past the race?
That sounds a little odd doesn’t it. Most people focus on the race, ignore the distractions but I am not talking about short term wins here.
I am speaking as an expert coach, if you want long-term success, health and making sure you achieve your best, again and again you need to plan for the year!
When working with weight-loss clients, you work on small, everyday steps but also have a plan in place, for when your client reaches their goal.
This is a similar strategy to that I use when working with my athlete’s, let’s build their year.We call it periodisation.
1 — What are the few major objectives for the year, we will peak for these?
2 — Then we can plan building phases, de-load phases, rest and restoration and the plan for the next goal.
Strangely, people just don’t do that for most general population, healthy active people.
That is wrong!
I am guilty of this myself. It’s deadly important to have an outcome path after each major goal, otherwise you will lose your way, very quickly and be back to square one.
I think back to an ‘emergency client’ I had.
(I only say emergency because, they came seeking my help just 4 weeks out from the London Marathon…TLDR, they succeeded and ran a great race.)
During our consultation he said, how in the past he had run several different half-marathon’s and marathon’s.
Yet, each time that was the sole target, literally the day after the race, he would stop running. Then it was a laborious restart to running again when he decided to enter another race.
This is a mentally and physically tough process to go through. In fact largely incomplete because the period in-between races is equally important.
Marathon recovery is crucial, this is how we manage the stresses the body has gone through. You need a de-training phase and a transition to regular structured training without doing something silly. Remember cardiovascular health is so, so important, it’s not just for races.
If you’re reading this and you’re guilty of focussing on just your next race, don’t sit there and say that’s me. MAKE A CHANGE.
Outline what you want to achieve in your main race, what your following 2–3 races will be and also if you have any lower goals you would like to achieve.
For example: Next Race — Manchester Marathon run a 3:30 Following this: 1Half-Marathon and 2 10k’s Sub-Goals for 2022: Run a sub 1:30 half, run a sub 45 minute 10k, run a sub 21 minute 5k.
If you don’t do this, you risk losing all that progress you’ve made in the hunt for 1 race.
All that hard work, the improvement in heart health, the fact that you might see a little ab definition or that you’ve just made your knees 10 years YOUNGER.
If you need help, book a FREE Consultation here=>https://performancephysique.co.uk/running-coach/
Happy Running people and drop me a message if you need some help!
Arj Thiruchelvam
@Performance_Physique