George Parrot - 19 March 2000
The race experience should be simply an extension of your overall training program and even a part of that training program as it leads to other future goals.
Hence one of the first elements in SMART RACING is to have a master plan and overall program that includes a given race, but extends well beyond that single event with other goals.
Have extended and orderly goals and plans for your racing.
The second element in smart racing should be demanding training. You must simulate major aspects of your planned racing in your training. You must have hills if a stage-wise goal race has hills, and you must do fast running if you hope to run fast on a particular day. You must,in fact, train must faster, albiet for shorter distances, than you plan to race on "test day."
The third element in smart racing is to construct realistic goals. Have 3 levels of goals for race day...
a. A really demanding, perfect case scenario goal
b. A totally realistic, it should be attainable goal
c. A Fallback goal, if conditions beyond your control occur.
Finishing a race and getting the most out of it possible is always much better than dropping out completely because you will not attain your perfect case scenario goal. Remember that races are also part of your training too, and you should neither emotionally "drop out" of a training session or "bag" a race just because it is not going to be a PR that day.
A 4th element in smart racing is to run the "best course" for the event. Not many runners actually KNOW how a running course is measured, but a course is always measured on the SHORTEST possible line that a prudent and safe runner might run. Unless a course is coned or otherwise formally specified for running "only on the bike lane," the smart runner should run every tangent whenever the course takes turns. I regularly observe up to 80 percent of a given field of runners actually running a course that is longer than what was measured! Smart runners run the required course, but never take one step that they do not have to for full certification.
And finally the smartest approach to optimum distance running performance is to run "even pace" or slightly negative pace over a given distance. This means that the WORST thing that a runner can do is to open the first 10% or so of their idealized race TOO FAST or faster than goal pace. A Smart Runner would be about 5% SLOWER than goal pace for the first 10% of their race distance, hit goal pace at about the 10% point of the event and then gradually increase that pace over the last 20-25% of the distance.
That is SMART RACING.
Respectfully, George Parrott