Mental Strategies for Race Day
Physical and mental state is important before and during a race strongly affect performance. You might be physically prepared, but are you mentally prepared? Read this mental strategies.
From the archive,
Articles
Training science, coaching, and the 80/20 method — from Matt Fitzgerald and the 80/20 Endurance coaching team.
Blog Time Machine
Hydration Packs for Running, Vest or Backpack and How Much Water to Carry
The short version. A hydration pack for running is worth carrying on fewer runs than the gear shops suggest. Most runners do not need one for runs under 90 minutes in mild weather, or for a road marathon with aid stations. You need one when you will be out longer than that without water, when…
Jim Vance ·
Curved Treadmills, Why They Feel Harder and How to Run 80/20 Workouts on One
The short version. A curved treadmill has no motor. Your feet drive the belt, so the pace follows you instead of the other way round, and at any given pace it costs more than a motorized treadmill does. The published comparisons put the extra heart rate and oxygen cost at roughly a fifth to a…
Jim Vance ·
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, How to Reduce DOMS and When to Train Through It
The short version. Delayed onset muscle soreness, DOMS, is the stiffness and ache that shows up a day or two after a session your muscles were not used to, peaks around 48 hours and fades by day four or five. It is not lactic acid and it is not an injury. The things that reliably…
Jim Vance ·
Is Garmin’s Lactate Threshold Estimate Accurate Enough to Set Your Zones?
The short version. The Garmin lactate threshold estimate is a reasonable starting point and nothing more. For many runners it lands within a few beats per minute of a field test, but it moves with heat, fatigue and the data it happens to see, it needs a chest strap, and when it is wrong it…
Jim Vance ·
Why Does Garmin Say Unproductive? What the Training Status Means and When to Ignore It
The short version. A Garmin unproductive training status means your training load looks fine but the watch’s estimate of your VO2 max has been trending down for a week or two. The estimate is built from pace against heart rate, so heat, humidity, hills, altitude, wind, fatigue, a wrong max heart rate setting, a block…
Jim Vance ·
What Is a Good Half Ironman Time? Average 70.3 Finish Times and Splits
The short version. A good half Ironman time depends on where you start. The average finish is a little over six hours, and the spread is wide. Under seven hours is a solid first 70.3. Under six is a strong age-group result. Under five puts you near the front of most age groups, and the…
Jim Vance ·
How to Run Stoically (and Why You Should)
Originating in Athens around 300 BC, Stoic philosophy is grounded in principles of self-control, radical acceptance, and personal character. I got into it some years ago after noticing that the great runners I admired and wished to emulate often embodied these principles. An example is Eliud Kipchoge, the two-time Olympic marathon champion from Kenya. At…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
Cloning Myself
AI can be used with good or bad intentions. Ironically, being a victim of bad AI motivated and taught me how to use it for good. Last October I learned that Anthropic, the AI behemoth, had illegally pirated eighteen of my books—along with half a million other books by three hundred thousand other writers—for use…
Matt Fitzgerald ·
There Are Two Kinds of Perfectionism. One Makes Champions. The Other Breaks Athletes.
Ask a room full of endurance athletes whether perfectionism helps or hurts, and you’d better clear your afternoon. Some will swear it’s the engine behind every good thing they’ve ever done. Others will tell you, with a little too much feeling, that it nearly ended their relationship with the sport. Matt Fitzgerald ran into exactly…
Jim Vance ·
What I Tell My Athletes, I’m Still Learning to Tell Myself
Coaches of Color apprentice Rosina Garcia reflects on the challenges of coaching oneself. Last fall I was training for a couple of races: a cross-country 10K in December and a 50-miler in early February. One of my workouts was 8 x 1K with one-minute recoveries, and I nailed it. Six months later, I did the…
Rosina Garcia ·
