COACH’S CORNER - Racing V Training by Greta Truscott

There is always debate around training vs racing.

Which of these yields more enjoyment and personal satisfaction. The question of whether to RACE regularly, or knuckle down with a solid TRAINING BLOCK to achieve your supreme peak fitness for your main target race is one worth exploring.

I know of some people that love to race a fair bit at least once or twice a month and others that prefer to race once during a 12 week block along the way to their target event at the end of the 12 weeks. Some people feel more comfortable in the training zone and rarely race as a result. They get too nervous about racing and this can also be a disadvantage. Others race a lot and may not achieve the pinnacle they could as a result of the lack of training.

Bottom line is to get the most appropriate balance ‘FOR YOU’ so you can have the best of both worlds.

Loving The Race

I personally love to race and do events, to be out there, part of the action, part of the community and generally just enjoying that event high. There are so many amazing events put on by tireless talented race organisers, I sometimes feel like a kid in a candy store when I’m searching online for my next running adventure. Pre-Covid, I think I had a pretty good balance of racing and training. 

Then when Covid hit, there weren’t many events around and that was a tough pivot which made us turn more to virtual races. I was super lucky to experience 1000 Miles to Light with Pat Farmer and Dean Karnazes where a team of us were in lock down on the army base together. Then when events started coming back again especially in 2023 it was fantastic and now it feels like running events are BOOMING more than ever! I entered in so many races trying to make up for lost time and had a blast, but I admit, as a result I perhaps cooked myself a little. So much goes into a race mentally and physically. Not only that but when you want to go well at each race there’s a fair bit of tapering down before the race and then recovering post race. I use the word races/events interchangeably but another point could be that you can do events as training runs without having to “race” them.

The Pros and Cons

Already we can see some of the pros and cons for each case. If you have a BIG GOAL RACE/EVENT that you want to achieve, then plotting in certain races/events to help you achieve it could be ideal, without over doing the amount of racing which takes too much taper and recovery time, taking time away from building, building, building towards your main goal. Some questions you can ask yourself.. What are your main goal races? What events do you love to do? What events do you want to be a part of that could be done as a training run rather than racing? Take a look at some of the AURA events too and see what works. 

 PROS of racing into fitness: 

• Racing often draws out your best effort and takes you to another level, so if you can race this is awesome. The shorter races like 5k and 10k don’t take too much recovery time. But the halfs, marathons and ultras take more recovery so those ones might need to be spread out more.
• Self control – if you want to participate in more events (yes please) but don’t want to take too long to taper or recover, then you might have to hold yourself back on the effort and cruise along a bit more like a tempo training run. If you’re the sort of person who can’t help but give 100% in races, you might need to be more selective on your races if they’re part of a specific training block to a bigger target goal race. 
• Events are exciting and fun and can take you all over the country or you could be on a holiday overseas when you stumble across an event so it is pretty amazing making the most of these opportunities when you get the chance.
  
  

 PROS of training into fitness: 

• Getting in many consistent weeks of a training block without a race can be very beneficial for building peak fitness with fabulous higher mileage and longer sessions, building on each week progressively and in a fairly controlled manner. 
• In a training block without races you don’t have to do a taper with dropped mileage, there are no terrible post-race DOMS and potentially even less risk of injuries in a measured training block than from a hard race. 
• Remember that you can utilise some events as training runs to serve your training block purpose.

The Year Ahead

In 2022 I only had 4 events, which was a low number to me, but 2 of those were the first 2 x 100km I’d ever done - Gary Mullin’s Sydney International 100k and Berlin 100k WC on the Aussie AURA team, so the year was heavily loaded toward training for those “biggies” for me. The only other 2 events I did were Bondi to Manly relay and the Gold Coast 50k, which were awesome but I felt I didn’t get to do many races.

Then in 2023, I went bananas doing about one event per month including the Thredbo Running Week race schedule, Tarawera Trail NZ 52km, Bathurst XC, Orange Marathon, Newcastle Marathon, Swim Run Australia (long course), Coogee Run Swim, Comrades 88km, Sydney Marathon, Melbourne Marathon, Athletics NSW 3000m and Bondi to Manly relay 20km. Possibly too much racing but it was super fun.

Thinking about the year ahead 2024, I’m aiming to strike a better balance between training and racing with hopefully a blend between 2022-2023. My eyes are squarely focused on a sub 3hr run in Boston in April and I’m also already thinking about 2025 with Australia Day Ultra 50km in WA and NZ Tarawera 100km etc..

It really can feel quite tricky to map out how many races/events to do and to get a spot before they sell out! Try to think a bit further ahead than just this year but also the year after that and so on, to be able to get a jump on entering when events open or getting those qualifying times that you might need. 

Take note of the events you really enjoy and love to do and what you want to achieve. This starts to map things out into just the right line up of events for you. 

Chase your dreams and enjoy the training and the racing. 

Love what you do and celebrate all your efforts and achievements. The spirit shines through above all else. 

Happy running.

Greta truscott is the founder and coach of rejoov runners in sydney, nsw. if you would like more information on being trained by greta, click through here to our aura endorsed coaches page.