Rest before a Major Race
Should you train or rest before a major race?
The best way to train a couple of days before an
important race or a marathon is to stop training altogether. How
long you can exercise a muscle depends on how much sugar
you can store in that muscle before you start to exercise. Dr.
Dave Costill of Ball State University asked one group of highly-
trained runners to jog at a slow pace on the two days prior to
measuring their muscle sugars and another group to not jog at
all. The runners who didn't jog stored the most sugar.
Studies on bicycle racers show that their muscles will
load maximally with sugar when they take a very hard workout
four days prior to racing and then ride easily for the next three
days. However, running three or four days before a marathon will
decrease the amount of sugar that muscles can store,
presumably because hard running damages muscles and
interferes with their ability to store sugar.
There is no evidence that a hard workout in the week
before a race will help a runner during that race. Hard training
tears down muscles and it take several days for the muscles to
heal sufficiently to improve performance. Run at a slow pace on
the fifth, fourth and third day before your event, and do not run at
all on the last two days.
Checked 2/9/12