Tips From the Pros - Jamie Cleveland

Getting the Most out of Your Race Day Performances
Jamie Cleveland
Ironman Champion and 14:50 5km runner
Owner, Hill Country Running Company
Head Coach, Texas Iron

People begin running races for a number of reasons. Regardless of why they start, sooner or later they all want to get better. In the interest of helping people improve their performance and achieve personal best times, I have compiled a list of strategies they can adopt to ensure success on race day.

Warm-up prior to the start
Most running events require that you run strong right from the gun. Always make sure your core body temperature is elevated by running 10-20 minutes and that your muscles and tendons are loose and ready to go. Performing several strides before the gun goes off is helpful because it allows you to elevate your heart rate and ready your body for the effort to come.

Pace yourself accordingly
A properly paced race sees you cross the finish line at full speed with little or nothing left in the tank. This means going out strong enough so that you are surrounded by people, running your goal pace, without blowing up. Deciphering the signals your body is sending you is part of the skill that allows you to know what effort level is sustainable. This should be emphasized in all your workouts. Speed sessions are designed to work on this as much as improving your fitness.

Line up in the right spot
Position yourself so that your path to the finish line is as unobstructed as possible. Courses vary tremendously but one fact remains the same, if you have to weave past a large group of competitors you are going to be slowed down and waste energy.

Use others to push yourself
On race day, find someone you can see and challenge yourself to compete against them. This might mean working to keep an individual in sight or picking off other athletes as you work your way to finish line. Regardless of how it plays out, use your inherent competitive instincts to get more out of your race day performance.

Mentally rehearse the race
Racing entails a lot of internal conversations and questions. Remove a lot of these by mentally rehearsing the race prior to race day. As you approach race day, take time to walk through the entire event prior to toeing the line. Prepare yourself for various scenarios and for the discomfort you will experience as you strive for speed. Acknowledge that it is going to be OK to be hurting and that it is part of the process. Pain and discomfort don't mean that you are not ready but rather are signs that you are taping into your new potential.

Preview the course
As part of your mental preparation for race day, make sure you preview the course so you know what you will facing on race day. Knowledge of specific hills or other challenging aspects of the course will help you better pace yourself on the day and will also allow you to know where you are in the race. In the absence of mile markers this may be the only information you have about how far you have come and how far you yet have to go.

Finish strong
The race isn't over until you cross the line. Make sure that you practice finishing intervals all the way to the end. You want your body to be programmed to run strong all the way through the finish line. All too often people get passed in the final meters simply because they mentally checked out at the sight of the finish.

Running fast doesn't happen by accident. Regardless of how effortless a performance looks, rest assured that it is a result of planning, hard work and strategic moves on race day. You've already done the hard work so it only makes sense to do a little planning in order to maximize your strategy and achieve the results you want.

Jamie Cleveland is an Ironman Champion and 14:50 5km runner. He is owner of Austin's newest running specialty store, Hill Country Running Company (www.hillcountryrunningcompany.com) and head coach for Texas Iron (www.texasiron.net). He can be reached at Jamie@hillcountryrunningcompany.com