Tip Tuesday - Race Ready with Flat Me

So this week for Tip Tuesday I have racing on my mind because this weekend I'm running the Hot Chocolate 15K Charlotte (see this post for more details). 

Anyway, race day can be pretty crazy. No matter how many times I race (I ran 21 races in 2018) and no matter the distance, I always get super nervous right before. And when you are super nervous, it is easy to make mistakes and forget things. So, to combat this, I am a firm believe in a Flat Me. 

My Flat Me for last year's Hot Chcolate 15K

A Flat Me is basically where you set out all of the gear that you are going to wear and use during your race and lay it out flat, arranged how it would be worn on your body. This gives you a good physical representation of all of your gear so you can see if you are missing anything. 

And when I say everything, I mean everything including stuff that you will carry in your pack as well. You don't want to get to the start line of a race and realize you are missing something. For example, let's say you get to the start of your Half Marathon and realize you have no gels on you. Trust me, this happened to me last month and it was not a fabulous realization. Luckily, there was a Fleet Feet Sports right at the Start (very lucky) but had I set out a Flat Me, which I usually do, but didn't for some dumb reason, I would not have had that problem. 

What about you? Do you do a Flat Me before your race? If not, how do you make sure that you have everything you need for race day? 

#TipTuesday - Easy Speed Work

So on this blog, I mainly post about my own training experiences, how things are going and the occasional review of awesome races and gear. One of my 2019 goals is to mix it up a bit more here and start posting some quick training tips to help other runners out there. So, without further ado... Introducing my very first #TipTuesday! 

I run with several local groups and a question that I hear quite often is: How do I get faster? The irritating short answer is - You run faster by running faster. The slightly longer answer includes training your body to become used to faster speeds by incorporating various forms of speed work into your regular training. The faster you push your run, the more that your body will get used to going faster, and your speed will improve in time. 

There are several different types of speed workouts that can be incorporated into your training. These include intervals, fartleks (fun to say), tempo runs, track work, hills, progressive runs, sprints and I'm sure even more. Today, I wanted to share with you my favorite way to add a bit of speed work into an otherwise regular run. It's a fun trick that I recommend especially for beginners who may be intimidated by traditional speed work. 

First off, let me say, I run with music. Like every run, even those with other people (I wear Aftershokz Trekz Air bone conducting headphones so I can hear everything going on around me - safety first). I typically listen to very upbeat songs while running, either a playlist that I have specifically made, or I will turn to Spotify for running playlists. It's important to mention this because this speed tip requires the use of music. It's part of what makes it fun! I call it - Musical Sprints. 

Musical Sprints is where you run normally during the verse of a song, but during  the chorus, you run all out, 100% effort. Song choruses typically last between 15 and 30 seconds which is plenty of effort for beginner sprint work. Plus, the chorus is typically repeated 3 or 4 times per song during an average 3 minute song. By running with cues from the music, you are not having to discipline yourself as much as far as keeping track of distances, times or having to set your watch or phone app, which frankly can be complicated. Plus, song choruses can be naturally energizing, especially if you populate your playlists with songs that you love!

Music makes me smile!

Let's do the math. So during a 30 minute run, let's say your listen to 10 songs. Assuming that during the first song you are warming up and do not incorporate sprints, you will sprint along with 9 songs. This gives you about 27 sprint intervals during a 30 minute workout. Not to shabby! And running along to the music makes it way more fun! And anything to make speed work more fun is a big plus in my book.

So, what do you think?  Do Musical Sprints sound fun to you? Do you have any unique or fun things that you incorporate into your training to make it more bearable? Let me know in the comments!