Physiology of ‘dusting off the cobwebs’ in preparation for race season
By Sarah Willis PhD.
In general, we are talking about having a short period of training where you are fatiguing yourself a bit, with more intensity, while keeping the volume up and building into the energy systems. This will follow with being a little bit more tired and not performing your best. But after this phase is complete (which doesn’t need to be that long of a period), then you back off the training load and be sure that you keep the intensity up. You will then go into the coming races fresher rather than fatigued.
In a general context, as we prepare for racing season, our training plans will increase with intensity and include race simulations (either on your own or with a group of people). It is especially necessary for those who are not racing as much, as you need to include training of the competition/race pace. It is very important to progress in specificity to the sport (i.e., technique, terrain, environment) while also extending the duration of high-intensity intervals/race pace to match the goal race.
If an athlete doesn’t have enough competition pace sessions in training, they will get stuck in their fitness and ability to succeed on race day. Many athletes who come into the season with great preseason training feel as though they are going to do great, but they don’t have any or enough competition/high-intensity training in their body and are sometimes too conservative, and they miss out on early success. We can make an analogy with a saltshaker; in that we should sprinkle this amount of high intensity into our training. Minding that we don’t want to pour the whole canister on the meal and ruin it, while also taking caution to the amount. We can try it out occasionally to see how it feels, then add more if needed. This has been helpful for me in visualizing how much is just right.
These high intensity/race pace intervals or race simulations are very important for stimulating pathways at the glycolytic level (anaerobic, burning primarily carbohydrates), as this is the primary energy system used for metabolism during most competitions. These sessions should be specific to an athlete’s goals with a specific distance/time duration in focus. The sessions should be planned as very short / high-intensity intervals OR practice of the competition pace of the effort duration (20-30-40-50 min) OR sustaining one hour of very high intensity (together with other people).
Even if you are an athlete who mixes in various distances/race durations, it is very important to reproduce that (2-3 times a
week). If you are not racing, then the 3rd session can be a race simulation. Simulation race with group of people can fit in occasionally, with benefits of getting the gears turning regarding intensity and quick decision making, but these sessions can also be a bit of a gamble as you don’t know exactly what this effort will give back to the athlete.
We must discuss and exude caution as well, to be careful not to train too much at very high intensities, particularly when racing regularly, as there are higher risks of feeling tired/fatigue/illness. Therefore, keeping that in mind and building some good days of recovery before your goal of the race season is vital for success.
Recovery is very important as well, maybe even tapering in the last 5 days before your goal. This can include some activation sessions to get the muscles and the energy systems feeling fresh, but at the same time, we don’t want to train hard until the very last day prior to the race.
It gets trickier when there is a period between major doses of racing, where you need a major dose of recovery too. High intensity is still very important, but you need to recover. When you don’t have many races on the plan, you need to stimulate high intensity, and the less competition that you have, the more difficult it gets, also mentally.
Monitoring recovery is therefore critical, if you don’t recover very well from an effort, you will be compromising your next performances. Once you start monitoring, it is imperative to continue to find some baseline of wellbeing to preserve your fitness and health.
So, what is the intended ‘priming’ workout? Some say 30/30s are better for building, some say 20/10s or another workout. It is best to find an interval workout that is in the target area related to goals but that also focuses on an athlete’s motivation, as want them to give full effort and make it kind of fun.
As fitness builds and advances towards race season, the adaptations that athletes should experience include improvements in the lactate threshold (more economical), VO2max, glycogen storage capacity, reduced fatigue in prolonged efforts, etc. These can manifest in feelings of capacity to sustain higher effort levels and intensity during workouts, allowing to maintain faster pace for a longer duration without reaching a point of overwhelming fatigue. This may combine with sensations of ease in training sessions
Still there are some days you feel amazing when races feel easy, and you exceed your expectations for finishing time/place. These races feel effortless and like we have a super charge in our body. But in other races you may feel sluggish from the start, with unresponsive and lethargic feelings where it takes a monstrous effort to manage a moderate pace.
To understand this delicate balance better, we should discuss the mechanism of muscle tension, which helps us feel lighter and springier with more pep in our step and stored energy in our muscles as the result of tension. This can be changed depending on what you do in training and when managed correctly can lead to greater efficiency and smooth feelings on race day. Great days with high muscle tension would include statements like: I had a lot of pop in my legs today, felt so springy, legs felt so responsive and sharp, I could just change gears, and it felt good. Contrary to this could be “I felt flat today” or “my legs were just dead from the beginning”, when we have low muscle tension.
Ok, so what are some strategies to adjust muscle tension to our needs? When we have a key workout or race approaching and we want higher levels of muscle tension, we should aim to adjust in these ways: accelerations/sprints/very short repetitions of < 30seconds, incorporating higher power in our pole plants and leg pushes, drills to exaggerate crisp powerful movements, ice baths. Where other times, decreasing muscle tension would be ideal such as post-race or when recovery should be prioritized. We can reduce muscle tension with strategies including slower intensity efforts, longer duration sessions, reducing impact and being smoother on transitions between techniques/terrain, hot baths. Muscle tension is more important for shorter (i.e., sprints and 5k’s) than longer races (i.e., marathon).
Incorporating these as a kind of ‘priming’ might be helpful before a big race to ensure feeling as fit and strong as possible. An example of a prep workout could be as follows: a warm- up with 3-4 sets of drills to emphasize technique with quick/snappy/powerful movements, followed by a short and easy session (possibly include a few reps of < 30s of goal race pace/effort), then 4-6 sprints applicable to the race (ex., practicing starts/finishes/corners/technique transitions/key moments of the course), after which you might have a very short and easy strength session in the afternoon, and an ice bath. The rest of the day (s) prior to the event/race should avoid long walks or extended periods of time standing on your feet, as this will decrease muscle tension, increase fatigue, and lead you to feel “flat” on race day. In return you should feel and be more economical with readiness and springiness to race fast. Let’s do this! Go team!