My first long distance race (IM 70.3 Galveston) is coming up, and I want to know who does a hard work out the day before, like some pro’s and elites do, and who takes it real easy?
Vector450
Take it easy, keep it short, put your legs up and rest!
everyone’s body and training and taper work differently, but assuming you’ve put the volume and intensity in prior to your taper week, generally speaking -
the point of a taper is to give your body some time to recover and absorb the work done previously by reducing volume, but in order not to lose your ‘edge’ or ‘top end fitness’ you need to some high or higher intensity workouts a few days leading into the main event.
but doing something super hard the day before probably not a great idea for most folks? do an easy swim, maybe a few short pickups on the bike/run and like others have said, put your feet up and hydrate.
oh - and make sure you get a good warmup before the swim if you can - activate the muscles, get the blood pumping. much better than trying to go from zero to hero in the first 30 seconds of a mass swim start.
My first long distance race (IM 70.3 Galveston) is coming up, and I want to know who does a hard work out the day before, like some pro’s and elites do, and who takes it real easy?
Vector450
What pros and elites?
I don’t know anyone who does a hard workout the day before a race
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It really depends on what you are doing leading up to the race.
If you have been training 6 to 8 hours then you probably should not do a hard workout the day before the race.
If you are at 20+ hours and have done a full taper then maybe up to an hour of race pace training might be in order. Personally for me I like to swim moderately for ~20 min, then later in the day bike ~45 min with ~20 min of that at race pace then maybe a light 10 min run.
When I don’t do that I’ll feel really flat the next day (for a race with a full taper)
jaretj
I am very interested to know what you think “hard” might be. Can you give an example of what you are thinking?
Also, what elite athletes do you know of that do go “hard” a day before the race?
I come from a marathoning background and have carried over my taper habits into IMs. Elite marathoners do NOTHING the day before a race. They lay around their room and order room service … read and watch TV.
I use a specific 8 day taper. 2 days out I do the Aussie Carb Run (google it) which is basically an all out sprint for 1/2 mile followed by liquid carb loading (2 hour window). That is all. Then the day before I do no training … go to the expo but otherwise try to stay off my feet.
I don’t know anyone who does a hard workout the day before a race
I do.
I think it probably doesn’t really matter much but quite a few big Ironman names used to do pretty hard workouts the day before. (Mark Allen, or Dave Scott, maybe both?)
In cycling it is standard myth and lore to do so. They call it openers. If you are in really good shape, you recover fast from hard workouts.
But I’ve never seen power meter evidence that it makes any difference what you do the day before. Nothing, or super hard road race? Same power tends to happen the next day. Running is a different animal though.
I think to OP might not understand what “Hard” is for a pro or elite that trains 18+ hours per week on average. Using TSS Score as a basis… a 1 hour ride with 40’ at tempo with a TSS score of 60, plus a short run is pretty easy for a pro or elite amateur with a bike/run CTL of lets say 150-170 coming into a race… and might be a good way to loosen up the legs before race day. An MOP athlete, might have a combined CTL of 60-80 so a 3-4 mile jog is plenty.
Also, is that race an “A”, “B” or “C” race.
More important is what you’ve been doing the 1-3 weeks prior to that event. Are you tapering or still building for a later event… hence the ABC question?
That being said, personally, since you’re usually on your feet so much messing with race logistics the 1-2 days before, its’ usually relatively short run swim and or bike the 1-2 days before. I’ll put in some short accelerations on the bike or run to loosen things up.
The 1 race last year where I failed to meet my expectations, was a result of being on my feet too much that weekend, and not having a good pre-race nutrition plan that didn’t adapt well to a delayed race start due to weather.
Push it to the limit, your best gains are the day before a race
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Since I sponsor pro’s, I get to know their systems, and the ones who win will do some hard tempo runs, bike and swim the day before, like a sprint distance at 80% effort or more. They use this to OPEN up, and get the body ready to be pushed.
One of my pro’s, Pat Schuster, has had his best races with a hard tempo work out the day before.
I have noticed in my own training that doing some back to back workouts, my second days are better than the 1st, and I see this on the Computrainer, where my power increases, even with a little soreness. For me, the challenge is nutrition.
BUT, I am not a pro and do less than half of what they do for work outs. My saving grace is I can get some good back to back brick’s in on the weekend.
Full disclosure. The product some of these pro’s and I use helps recovery, so there may be something to this idea, but not with standing that, I have seen it many times the day before with many higher end racers. Since I have a booth at the IM events, I have a challenge with having to work it the day before, so time is NOT on my side.
Thanks for the reply and post. There are a few mentioning go harder than you might expect.
Since I sponsor pro’s, I get to know their systems, and the ones who win will do some hard tempo runs, bike and swim the day before, like a sprint distance at 80% effort or more. They use this to OPEN up, and get the body ready to be pushed.
One of my pro’s, Pat Schuster, has had his best races with a hard tempo work out the day before.
I have noticed in my own training that doing some back to back workouts, my second days are better than the 1st, and I see this on the Computrainer, where my power increases, even with a little soreness. For me, the challenge is nutrition.
BUT, I am not a pro and do less than half of what they do for work outs. My saving grace is I can get some good back to back brick’s in on the weekend.
Full disclosure. The product some of these pro’s and I use helps recovery, so there may be something to this idea, but not with standing that, I have seen it many times the day before with many higher end racers. Since I have a booth at the IM events, I have a challenge with having to work it the day before, so time is NOT on my side.
Thanks for the reply and post. There are a few mentioning go harder than you might expect.
Watch the last few Kona tv shows… The people (Leanda, Rinny, Crowie) who have won have all stated (prior to their race) that the day before is all about maximum rest. They probably get a light workout in, but it is unlikely they are doing any sustained efforts.
So here is the bottom line.
You will NOT gain ANY fitness in the day or two before a race. There is though, truth that some intensity can be used to really wake things up and get the muscle fibers working, or break up adhesions of the body.
My personal opinion is that it would not be beneficial to do anything more than 10-20 minutes in each discipline with some short bursts of intensity in the day before a race.
I usually sit on my ass or play with my kid.
I agree that it can be beneficial to do these “opening” workouts the day before. I do that myself - high intensity but short duration, but overall not “hard”.
I usually do something like this:
swim: 20 min OW focusing on form, with 5x45 sec @ threshold
bike: 30 min - mostly easy with 5-6 x 1 min @ FTP
run: 15 min jog with 5 x 30 sec pickups to (race pace -20)
For me, that’s enough to “open the pipes” but not taxing in terms of load. I can’t remember what Mark/Dave did but as I recall their last “big workout” was something like a 4 hour ride a week out, and then something short and intense the day before?
I agree with Rob and his day before workout. I do nearly the same thing, just even less time on each discipline. Then it’s feet up, hydrate, and eat last meal around 4:30p.
SO i have done a few races and did the take it easy method and then the hard work out method. On the take it easy method, my results were as expected, reached my goal, but nothing spectacular. Did not get the race bump I wanted. The next race I did a hard bike and run the day before and my results were my fastest bike avg and strong run. Ironically, after all my races, which included a HIM, I ran the following day with some of my fastest 10K’s…completely unexpected. I will keep experimenting!
I typically take the day before completely off training. Though once or twice I’ve had a swim class the day before, which hasn’t seemed to help or hurt any. Since one of my best race results last year came after a whole week off (badly burned my foot, couldn’t get a shoe on), I’m sticking with the ‘rest up’ plan pre-race.
less is more 
I like to do an easy swim and jog the day before the race.
less is more
Disagree. More is more 