1337 QT Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Races? (Best Of-ish)

And if you do that, I almost said do-do. I didn't say do-do. I guess I just said do-do.

If you do that,

episode 1337, if this runs radio as a quick tip episode, best of issue-dition.

Today's quick tip, the problem was running too many races.

For many runners, at least for those of us that enjoy

towing the line, pinning on a bib and having a race on the calendar, race day is a good day.

Race day is a fun day. It's something that we look forward to. It's something that

maybe helps us to stay on track with our training, right? On the days when maybe we don't really

feel like running or we want to cut a run short. Knowing that you've got a race on tap

can be enough to give you that extra little nudge to grind out a long run or to really dig in

for the last, maybe the last speed interval or whatever you're doing.

And so again, for a lot of us, races are a good thing, but races are one of those situations where

potentially too much of a good thing could not be a good thing. And this was true back in episode

448, which is when this topic was first talked about on the podcast back in August of 2017.

And it's true now, you know, in episode 1337 back in present day March of 2026.

Some runners, and you know who you are, and I know who some of you are because I coach you,

just really love a race, right? Almost can't sign up for enough races.

And in some cases, though not in all cases, that's not exactly a good thing.

So like we said, it's too much of a good thing, not a good thing. Sometimes when it comes to races,

but ultimately there is a bit of an, it depends situation here. So, you know,

Chugalug, those of you that enjoy playing the old Dizz Runs drinking game here,

because you know, no, I don't really like one size fits all advice,

because there is no such thing as one size fits all advice.

Everyone is different. For some runners, too many races on the

calendar really is a problem, because you don't know where to focus your energy.

You don't recover, you know, it's harder to recover from one race when you go right into the

next race. For some of us, you know, you can get away with it because maybe we're able to,

you know, control the output for a race, i.e., you run all the races, but you don't race all the races,

right? There is a difference between running a race and racing a race. You can sign up for a marathon

and run it comfortable. And yeah, it's, it's a lot of miles on your feet and there's still some

recovery that's involved, but and again, it doesn't have to be a marathon, it could be a half marathon,

it could be a 5K, it doesn't matter the distance. You know, as well as I do, if you've ever

really raced any distance hard, that there's a difference between running the distance easy and

running the and racing it, right? So if you're, if you're running a marathon, you're running a half

marathon, you can run all the marathons. If you're not racing, very many of them at all, but you

can't race all the marathons. And again, same, same is true for the half marathon, the 10K, the 5K,

although the shorter we get in distance, the more likely you can race them fairly routinely,

but we're looking at bigger races in general here. And you know, this was brought back to my attention

just in conversations with some of my different athletes that I coach, where, you know,

couple of folks racing pretty regularly and trying to, trying to determine the best course of

action to really push themselves for a PR. You know, if, if you're running a racer to just about

every month, you know, maybe not every month throughout the year, but probably eight or nine times

over the course of a 12 month year, you've got some good hard races, some, you know, half marathons

and marathons type of situation. Where do you get a good solid training block to really peak

for a goal race? It's doable, but it's tricky, right? Versus some other athletes that I coach,

where it's like, all right, I've got, you know, a race in April and a race in November. And those

are the two goal races. So pretty, pretty easy to see how we build the one we recover and then we

build the next one, right? Easy to know the focus, which is, which is where it gets tricky, right?

If you're going to run a bunch of races, the strategy that's involved with

having a plan for which race are you going to really focus the goal race versus which of the race

are you going to run as training runs or as workouts, but not as goal races? How do you stack the

training? How do you stay disciplined? Because that's maybe the biggest factor. You know,

if you're going to run a bunch of races, are you disciplined enough to not get to the starting

line of a race when the plan is to just run it, run it, you know, easy, maybe comfortably hard,

but not race it. And then you get caught up in the excitement, caught up in the atmosphere,

maybe caught up in chasing a runner that passes you and you go, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no,

I'm not letting him pass me. I can keep up with her, right? I don't know if that's something that

you struggle with, but I've been there. I've struggled with that a few times when the plan was to

run a race comfortably hard and you get halfway in and you're like, damn, I feel pretty good.

It's just, you know, six, seven miles to go for a half marathon.

Maybe I could push it a little bit and see what happens. You end up running a solid race,

but also pushing harder than was originally planned because I didn't have the discipline

to stay the course. So, you know, as we're looking ahead at 2026, maybe some of you already

starting to look ahead to 2027, you people that make plans, unlike me, who's like, I don't

know what I'm doing tomorrow, but, you know, some of you are planners, right? You're already

looking at your 2027 race schedule. Certainly you've got things already on tap for the rest of 2026.

If you've only got one or two races on the calendar, I mean, I'm not saying that's better or

worse, but it makes things pretty straightforward, right? Makes it pretty easy to go, all right,

this race is the goal race. Maybe this race is the, is the kind of practice race, the test drive,

you know, the tune up race type of situation, but the next race is the goal, whatever it is,

things are pretty straightforward when there's only a couple of races on the calendar, right?

If you're looking at the last, you know, eight, nine months of the year, and you've got

eight, nine, ten races on the calendar, unless they're all 5Ks, if you've got any, if you've got

majority are half marathons or longer, and you don't have a plan for what races are being

raced and what races are being run, time to start planning is now. Time to get honest with yourself

about where things are, what your goals are, because with races that frequently, it's like I said

earlier, it's going to be hard to really put in a solid block of training to go from, you know,

build up to a race, recover from a race, build to the next race, like, like it's a lot of maintenance,

which is okay, but probably doesn't lend itself to really racing, racing, racing,

each and every race. So get clear about what races are the goal races, and then be disciplined

on how to make sure that you don't turn a training run race into a unplanned goal race,

and if you do that, I almost said do-do, I didn't say do-do, I guess I just said do-do.

If you do that, just realize that there's going to be downstream effects of that, right? If the

plan was to race a race in two weeks, hard, or in a month hard, and the race this week treated

as more of a training run, and you end up getting caught up in the emotion, caught up in the excitement,

decide to scratch your competitive itch and drop in the hammer, that could impact the goal race

down the road. But, and now this is where some of you are going to get yourself in trouble,

where I'm going to give you the green light to get yourself in trouble. Sometimes it is the right

choice to go off script, right? But don't do so thinking that that doesn't change the script,

right? Maybe you've got a race on the calendar coming up this next weekend or something like that,

you feel really good, the weather is perfect, everything's kind of lining up like, dang,

there wasn't planning on racing this race hard, but maybe I should go for it? I mean, maybe you should

go for it, but don't think that that doesn't mean that you may not have to change, change course

after the fact, all right? So running all the races is doable, racing all the races is probably not

and kind of figuring out, you know, how to balance the running versus the racing,

can be a little tricky, can be a little tricky, it's doable, it's doable, but it can be a little tricky.

So, if I can help with that, we can jump on a phone call, I can coach you, we got,

we got different options available, you know, that is runs dot com slash coaching for all the

different options, or you could just ask a question, right? Shoot me, shoot me a comment, shoot me

a DM, send me an email, and I'll try to give you some, give you some thoughts to help you stay on

track, but the biggest thing is you got to know yourself, are you disciplined enough to stay

the course or not? And if not, then probably it would be wise to not sign up for too many races,

because that might be a recipe for a disaster. Anyway, how do you handle race season? Are you

a run all the races type of person? Are you like one or two goal races a year type of person?

Are you like me who's like, I don't know, I'll probably run a race at some point, you know,

and then you need your wife to decide when you're going to run a race and we're going to run a race

in two months, but you know, because she decided not because I decided, I mean, I contributed to

the conversation, but if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be running a race in two months. That's

ultimately how that works itself out. But what works for you? What doesn't, let me know when it

comes to running all the races at dis runs on all things social media, dis runs at gmail.com,

and if you need some help, I'll help you. I'll help you in any way that I can. So with that,

we'll go ahead and wrap this one up y'all. Hope this was useful. Hope it made sense. Hope that you've

got some good races on the calendar for the rest of the year. Just not too many that you have a

hard time deciding which ones to really race hard and which ones to treat more as training runs.

But until next time, y'all be well. Take care. Talk soon. See you.