Be race ready with simulations 🏁

To be prepared on race day, you need to practice for race day.

Why does it matter: While that may be obvious, in the typical workout you’re not practicing for race day.

• If you’re following 80/20 (which you should), you are going slower.

• You’re route isn’t like what you’ll see on race day.

• You’re using different kit (shoes, clothes, gear)

A race simulation workout is designed to fill these gaps. Additionally your race simulation should:

• Fine tune race warmup

• Set heart rate, pace or power limits.

• Simulate race conditions

  • Test race hydration and nutrition

  • Simulate race start time

  • Practice transitions (for multisport)

A little more on each below 👇️ 

Read time: 4 min

Warm up

You want to be ready for race pace at the start line. To do this you need a solid warm up. Most of your warm up should be at an easy pace. Just get the body ready to move. Get your blood pumping. You also want to get a feel for race pace.

In my race simulations I took the first 1km of the first run to simulate a warm up.

1. 500mtr Z1 pace

2. 100mtr race pace

3. 200mtr Z1 pace

4. 100mtr race pace

5. 100mtr Z1 pace

Overall this warmup will be too short for race day. 100 meters isn’t enough to get a feel for pace. I’ll be experimenting more with warmup over the next week.

Intensity

Your race simulation should be hard enough to test mental fortitude on race day.

However…

Listen to Alan. While your race simulation should be hard, you need to save your mojo for the race.

Do race pace intervals totaling race distance.

Example: One of my 5km legs was 2km race pace → 500 meter recovery → 2.5km race pace.

This keeps the intensity up, plenty of time to get a feel for race pace, but isn’t a full race effort.

Similarly, on the bike, cap your heart rate or power like on race day. Mix in easier efforts.

In my case there were enough forced slow downs due to needing to follow traffic laws that there was natural recovery built into the route.

For multisport: set your targets as high as you can while leaving you fresh to perform in the next leg.

My running race pace is 4:50/km. That’s a pace I know I’ll feel fresh getting on the bike. On the bike, I’m capping my HR below 155 bpm. I know I’ll have gas left in the tank for the run.

On race day the last leg should be when you empty the tank. Give it all you’ve got. But don’t let yourself do that in training.

Race conditions.

While not all race conditions can be known (like weather), it’s important to practice for the variables we know or control on race day.

Route

Pick a route that is as similar to the race as possible.

If the race is hilly and curvy you need to practice gear changes and handling in turns and downhill. If your race is flat and straight you need to get a good idea of what gear to stick in to stay in your ideal power range.

If you live in a hilly area it will be hard to find a route flat enough (this is one of my problems) but do your best.

For triathlon don’t forget to get some time in the open water. Time in the pool is great but the open water is anxiety inducing. Best to get used to it before race day.

Kit

You need to test out the clothes, shoes and other gear you will be using on race day.

• Does your bike need a tune up?

• What clothes do you need at what temperature?

• How do your shoes feel?

Now is the time to experiment so you don’t have to on race day.

Transitions

If you have a multisport event coming up you need to practice going from one sport to the other.

• Practice the logistics of changing your gear.

• Get a feel for what it’s like to run after hard effort on the bike.

If your simulation transition area looks anything like mine, practice transitions by themselves.

Set up your bike on a stand with your shoes and helmet nearby. Time yourself changing gear between events. Race yourself. How fast can you do this?

Don’t forget to buckle your helmet early on to avoid penalties

Hydration and nutrition

Hone in on the what, when and how of your race hydration and nutrition.

• What are you going to eat before the race?

• What are you going to have with you on the bike?

• When are you going to drink and eat?

For me, I’m eating an easily digested high carb breakfast, at least two hours before the race. Closer to the race I may have a banana and a few dates. Being a short event, during the race, I’ll only have 16 OZ of homemade sports drink on my bike.

What's next: It’s only two weeks until I race the Spring Classic Duathlon in Vancouver, WA. If you want to follow along with my training check me out on Strava or follow me on Twitter (if you’re not already)