Serial Racing and Multi-Day Challenges

The dog days of summer are here and sometimes the daily training runs can become a bit dull.  What can you do to get a little motivation?  One thing that can help keep you going is to make some plans to enter race events in the upcoming (and cooler) fall months.  It’s exciting to click the “Register” button and make the commitment!  In fact, it’s several months away, and surely you will be feeling much stronger and faster by then…so you decide to click “Register” a bunch of times!

Many of us go through those grand runner highs – not the ones we get from the actual run, but the kind that happen when we find ourselves caught up in a registration frenzy.  The smartest race directors have figured out that marketing to an optimistic runner is profitable, so many of them have developed an offering of race series, multi-distance challenges, and multi-day events.

But is it really just marketing hype?  Suppose you are an athletic purist, searching for that perfect combination of peaking and recovery – is serial racing a good thing, or bad?

This is a controversial topic so I’ll just share my own experience and opinions, and you can make your own judgment.  To get straight to the bottom line, I’ll say that when done at the right time, racing in multiple events over a very short time frame can produce spectacular results.  Why?  Because if you are trained and ready for one race, then chances are reasonably good that with a short recovery you can handle another.  Don’t believe me?  Then let me point to just a few high-profile examples:

• ·         Lasse Viren won Gold in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics in both the 5k and 10k
• ·         Keninesa Bekile won Gold in the 2008 Olympics 5k and 10k, and Silver (5k) and Gold (10k) in 2004 Olympics
• ·         Mo Farah won double Gold in the 2012 Olympic 5k and 10k.  In fact, 7 Olympians have managed to do this feat!
• ·         Michael Wardian has multiple back-to-back Saturday/Sunday marathon wins,

OK, so you’re not Mo Farah.  Neither am I.  But my own experiences also point to potentially good results from serial racing.  My first marathon in which I reached a long-standing time goal of sub-3 hours came at an unexpected time – in the 6 weeks prior, I had run 6 full marathons, 1 half, a 10k, and a 4 miler – and 2 weeks later, I ran another sub-3.  Conventional wisdom would say that is way too much racing with no recovery, yet I was making performance improvements throughout.  

Racing frequently is not necessarily dangerous and won’t automatically compromise your performace!  At the beginning of that 6 week period, I ran a multi-day series called the “New Year’s Double”.  The NYD was a super-fun, challenging event that I will always fondly remember.  And yes, the bling included a special plate to affix both days’ marathon medals to – racing bling is a fun way to provide a quick memory jog when you hang it on your wall!

There are many, many opportunities to be a serial racer.  Some of the best will offer you additional perks, such as a medal or jacket, to reward your effort.  In addition to the previously mentioned New Year’s Double, here are a few of my favorites:

• ·         The Rock’n’Roll race events have several series.  “Heavy Medals” reward participation in multiple events during a single calendar year.
• ·         The Southern Arizona Roadrunners has a “TripleCrown” series that rewards participants who run in 3 events during the year.  They also have a “Grand Prix” series that rewards racers for running in at least 6 events.
• ·         The Carlsbad 5000 has a special registration option that allows you to race in 4 consecutive 5k events – on the same day!  It’s called “The All-Day 20k” and finishers receive a special medal.
• ·         It’s becoming quite common for marathons to also host a 5k event the day prior to the big race.  Although many feel that a fast 5k the day prior can hinder marathon performance, I’ve found them to be fun and a nice chance to warm up the legs.  (Plus you get extra bling!)
• ·         Some marathons partner with other events to create a multi-city series.  For example, The San Francisco Marathon has multiple challenges including the CaliforniaDreamin’ medal (run both SFM and Surf City), the SF/Berkely Challenge, etc.  Three of the races in Southern California (Surf City, OC, and Long Beach) offer the Beach Cities Challenge medal for completing all 3 events.
• ·         Some marathons offer benefits for runners who return multiple years.  The Surf CityMarathon, for example, has a “Longboard Legacy Club” for runners who race at least 3 years in a row.
• ·         Our own Tucson Marathon has taken the series challenge concept to a new level with several different options, including the Wildcat Challenge, Fiesta Challenge, and Saguaro Challenge.

Let’s take it from a less technical, more subjective perspective.  Most of us are not running for our paychecks.  We do it for fun!  Maybe we’re also trying to improve our health or fitness, but there are many ways to accomplish that.  We run because running is enjoyable, and we enter events because they are fun!  So…if you’re running a race on Saturday to have fun, why not do another one on Sunday?  Double your fun!

One last thing.  After you've gone wild registering for all those fall races, be sure to let your friends know on the TRP site and update the TRP Racing Calendar spreadsheet.  We're all in this together!