Planning a race season is an intellectual and responsible activity. You can approach this process in different ways — rationally, emotionally, or feverishly.
Let’s assume you plan to run 2 half marathons and a few smaller races in the upcoming running season. What would be the approach to planning the season depending on your goals?
The “rational” approach.
We would recommend this approach if your goal is to run a fast race. Here time and priorities are important. Choose 2 main A-races in the season, at which you will be at the peak of your abilities. Use the other races as secondary or as a “dry run” before the priority races.
How much time is needed?
The prep scheme for the A-race might look like this: preparation -> 1st intermediate start -> recovery -> preparation -> 2nd intermediate start -> recovery -> A-race.
Or in months:
2 months of preparation -> first intermediate start -> 1–2 weeks of recovery -> 1 month of preparation -> second intermediate start -> 2 weeks of recovery -> A-race on super-compensation.
That’s a total of 4 months to reach your peak from the time you start. If you start in February, you will be able to show the first reasonably high result in June with two intermediate starts in early April and late May. As you see there is still a place for the second A-race in October with secondary races in August and September.
The “for fun” approach.
More often racing is not so important as you look for new emotions, atmosphere, and tourist destinations. This approach is about sightseeing, community and finisher’s medal rather than the race result itself. Detailed preparation with deadlines and strict self-discipline don’t work here. But the light preparation mode should be applied anyway.
The light mode is about the minimum necessary training efforts to get ready for the race with decent fitness. Among OMY! Sports trainees this kind of training mode is very popular.
The “racing fever” approach.
The category of “hungry” to any start is always quite large — especially among beginners. In this case, buying slots for starts is related to the adrenaline rush after every new message about registration opens somewhere.
In our experience, up to 20% of the slots bought on adrenaline are lost for various reasons — from overlaps with other, no less important, life events, to misses for “good reason”, which in turn are caused by racing overdose. In other words, many are eager to test themselves without considering the time required, sufficient training, and minimal racing experience.
If you find yourself in that state, try to manage your financial risks and set a stop-loss or a risk budget.
How does OMY! Sports help in each case?
In life, we rarely plan perfectly, so flexibility and combining these three options is key to managing the whole case. Emotions and adrenaline often win, but sometimes cold calculation and disciplined training must be applied. No matter what is your approach, the OMY! Sports app allows you to specify all your planned races and get ready for them in the Race Calendar section of Settings.
We wish you a great plan for the season.
Your OMY! Sports team