Mount Festival Top Tips

T minus 4 months

Training Plan

With still a decent amount of time to the Mount Festival event now is the time to really start knuckling down into your training.  For the past few weeks you have been ticking along with some nice base fitness work, not getting too worn down, and looking at making the most of your recovery and down time.  But now comes the time to start actually planning for how you are going to train for the event.
This shouldn't mean you suddenly start doubling up your training hours, doing crazy long and hard workouts, or ripping into over race paced work….not at all.  In fact the training volume probably won’t need to change much over the next few weeks, but what does change is your mental focus for the event coming up. Now when you go training the sessions are going to start becoming more specific to your race.

So how do you chose the Training Plan to use, and how long should it run for?  The ideal for most events up to Half Iron Distance is either a 12 or 16 week plan.  16 weeks gives you a bit more Base training whereas the 12 week might put you into harder training sooner.  One thing you want to make sure of though, is that the Training Plan is well structured and specific to the event you’re training for, and is scaled to your own ability.  You don’t want to be following an advanced level plan if you are doing your first event, and likewise, an Advanced athlete may find a Beginner plan leaves them a bit short on Training Load.Use a trusted source to find your Training Plan.  Quite often word of mouth is good here, and if you have a friend who’s followed a plan successfully and found it prepared them well for the event, then it’s probably a good plan for you to follow.

You may come across a Training Plan from a printable PDF, which work great, these are simple to follow and convenient.  Other plans are incorporated into Athlete Community management software, so you receive the plan to your Desktop or Phone App and within that you may have access to an online community to learn from and share ideas with.  This is one of the Coaching models we have here at Foot Traffic and we have found it to be a highly successful method of training.  Which ever option you follow make sure you follow the plan, trust the process and try not to modify it too much.  The plan would have been written with the intention of it being followed mostly to the letter.

Visualisation

You should start using visualisation techniques through your training from now through to race day.  Place yourself on the course while performing a work out, put yourself in to a race situation, imagine how you will be feeling at this stage in the race and how you will get yourself to the end with your best performance….don’t start day dreaming though, we don’t want any accidents. 
Any opportunity you get while training think about what you will be doing at certain stages, and consider how you will cope with various situations in the race.  Have some fun with it, make it something to look forward to on race day.  I guarantee you will start smiling as you visualise yourself running down the finish chute in your mind.

This sort of visualisation is one of the key strategies to a successful race.  All of the best athletes in the sport use visualisation in training, so that when unexpected things happen on race day they aren't surprised by them.

Accomodation

Another important thing to deal with now is to book your accomodation.  Often at popular races it becomes very difficult to find suitable accomodation convenient to the event venue, so you certainly don’t want to miss out and have to pay a high price or stay far away.

Here are a few tips that I keep in mind when looking for accommodation at a race

▪ Walking distance to the venue: This is a great if you can make it happen.  There is nothing better than arriving at your accommodation with plenty of time before a race, wandering down to the venue for registration, cruising around the expo, and not having to worry about parking.  Then on race day you are able to roll out of your place, walk to the race in your own time, not stress about toilets, parking, your family don’t have to hurry up, and then after the race you can easily hobble back to your own bed.

▪ Book early for the best price:  The sooner you book the better the price.  This is a no-brainer, if you are frantically trying to find somewhere at the last minute you will probably end up paying a premium price.

▪ Once you find something stick to it: You may find that perfect spot, so make sure you book it for the following years of the race.  The best trick is to book it for the next year at your departure, so you know you already have it sorted and thats one less thing off your mind.

▪ Bike Friendly: Make sure your place is ok with you parking your bike inside.  Obviously you won’t be making a mess with it, but you can understand the reluctance of a lot of places for allowing bikes in the rooms.  You don’t want to find you have an extra charge for storing your bike somewhere at the location

▪ Late check out: when you book make sure you ask for a late check out.  A lot of places require you to vacate by 10am, and in the case of a long race, you may still be out on the course.  A late check out means you can go back to your room to shower and relax before heading to prize giving or making your way back home

Mount Festival Training Plans

If you're interested in the 16 Week Training Plan for the Half and other race day events hit the link below

#FOOTTRAFFICTRI #FTEAM #TRAININGLAB