Respect the Challenge! Training Tips and Advice

Posted on by Ann Currie

Here at Aberfeldy Multi-Sport Festival, we are committed to ensuring you come to the start line of our events, fully prepared for your physical challenge. We cannot stress enough that it’s important to train properly for your challenge. At best, you won’t enjoy the experience and in the worst-case scenario, you will be at risk of injury.

Here are our tips and advice to ensure that you arrive at the start line fully prepared for the challenge.

Are you prepared for the distance?

To take part in your event without risking your health, you need to be able to comfortably complete the distance. This means you should feel you could swim, bike or run a bit more at the end of the race. As a guide, during the weeks before your race, aim to have:

Run

  • 4 miles continuously if taking part in a 10km run
  • 6 miles continuously if taking part in a 10-mile run
  • 10 miles continuously if taking part in a half marathon

Swum

  • 625m continuously if taking part in a 1km Swim
  • 1500m continuously if taking part in a 2Km Swim
  • 3000m continuously if taking part in a 5Km Swim

Biked

  • 15Km continuously if taking part in a 20Km Bike
  • 30Km continuously if taking part in a 40Km Bike
  • 70Km continuously if taking part in a 90Km Bike

If you can’t manage these distances, you may not be able to complete the event safely and probably won’t enjoy it. We’d recommend that you drop to a lower distance if it’s available or wait until next year.

FIT TO COMPETE

It’s important to train properly for your event otherwise you will be at risk of injury. Here are some tips that will help ensure you enjoy your training safely.

  1. Before you start any training programme, make sure you’re healthy enough to commence challenging physical activity. Talk to your doctor if you have a long-term health condition that may affect your ability to exercise, such as:
  • heart disease
  • asthma
  • diabetes
  • epilepsy
  • arthritis

If you start your training programme and find that you feel unwell, see your doctor, especially if you:

  • have heart palpitations
  • feel lighted-headed, dizzy or faint
  • have chest pain or tightness
  • get excessively short of breath
  • get excessive wheezing or coughing
  • have severe joint or muscle pain
  1. Start your training slowly and build up gradually, especially if you haven’t exercised for some time. Allowing yourself recovery time is also important when training. This is when your body gets stronger and fitter. If you don’t allow time for your body to recover, you may weaken your performance and feel tired. Muscle aches and pains happen most commonly after an increase in training, and stress on your lower limbs can cause injuries. In practical terms, this means that you should make sure that you schedule in rest days and get plenty of sleep.
  2. Give yourself time to warm up and cool down before and after your training session. Warming up allows time for your body to prepare mentally and physically for the exercise you’re about to do. A good warm up should include activity that slightly raises your heart rate followed by stretching. This increases the blood flow to your muscles, improves flexibility and prepares your muscles. Cooling down after your run helps to reduce muscle soreness and stiffness.
  3. To reduce your risk of injury when run training, vary your routes, running surface, pace and distance. Ideally, swap between two pairs of shoes on alternate training days.
  4. Face oncoming traffic when running and stay visible, especially when it’s dark – for example, wear bright or reflective clothing. When cycling always wear bright reflective clothing and use a good quality set of front and rear lights when in the dark.
  5. When swimming outdoors, wear a bright coloured cap, try not to swim on your own and be aware of the dangers of open water. There is now a selection of tow marker buoys to help other marine users spot swimmers (these can’t be worn in a race but they’re good for training).
  6. Practice your navigation when swimming in open water. This will help you on race day to keep to the correct course and spot your marker buoys.

HYDRATION

It’s important that your body stays hydrated – keeps the right level of water – so that it can function properly. You also need enough water to allow nutrients to be transported around your body.

The colour of your urine can be a helpful indicator of hydration. Generally, dark urine suggests dehydration, with pale, straw-coloured urine being ideal. If you don’t usually drink caffeinated drinks, don’t start now as they can be particularly dehydrating if you aren’t used to them.

In general, drink when you feel the need and don’t gulp large volumes of fluids before, during or after a race – this can result in a condition called hyponatremia. This happens when the salts in your body are diluted too much and can cause confusion, disorientation and vomiting.

Before the Race

Start the race well hydrated. Drink enough fluids in the week leading up to the race and in particular the day before the event to ensure that you’re properly hydrated. Alcoholic drinks can be dehydrating, so avoid them in the 24 hours before a race.

Choose water or a sports drink such as Active Root Sports Drink Mix or Electrolyte Drink Mix. Stick to drinking whatever you have practised with during training.

During

During strenuous exercise, you can lose between half a litre and two litres of water per hour as sweat. It’s important to replace the fluid and salts you lose.

Everyone is different; some people sweat more than others, and some lose more salt in their sweat. Because of this individual variation, it’s not possible to give exact advice on how much you should drink during a training session. As a general rule, aim for 120 to 150ml of cold fluid every 10 to 15 minutes. Cooler fluids are recommended because they are usually more palatable and help to lower your core body temperature.

Make sure you know where the drink stations are on the race route. Water and Active Root Drinks will be available at most of our events but only take a drink if you need one. If it’s hot, there will be extra water available.

After

Most Athletes don’t drink enough during a race and need to rehydrate afterwards, so take on some fluid as soon as you can after crossing the finish line. Although you may feel like celebrating, make sure you’re fully hydrated with water or squash before you have any alcohol.

EATING

During training

The best advice when training is to stick a healthy, balanced diet. If you do this, you will be getting all the nutrients you need to exercise regularly, so you won’t need to take vitamins or other supplements to improve your training regime.

On training days, have a meal about three to four hours before you run if you can. This should be low in fat and fibre and high in carbohydrate and include some protein. Then have a snack half an hour to an hour before your training.

Try to eat some carbohydrate-based food with a little bit of protein to help muscle repairs within two hours of finishing long training runs and after the race – your muscles can replace energy (glycogen) twice as quickly during this time.

The week before your Triathlon

It’s very important both in the days before your race and during it that you stick to food and drink that you have tried before. Don’t start trying lots of new foods as it may affect your digestion.

If you’re going to be exercising for longer than 90 minutes, for example a half-marathon, or a sprint triathlon, you will perform better if you follow a programme of carbohydrate-loading in the three days before the race. This involves reducing your training and increasing the amount of starchy foods you eat while cutting down on protein. Sports dieticians recommend that in the three days leading up to the race more than the normal 60 percent of your food intake should be carbohydrates. This is important for maximising your muscles’ energy stores.

ILLNESS

During training

If you’re injured, or have flu or gastroenteritis, don’t train until you are fully recovered. Although the worst flu symptoms are usually over after five days, it can take much longer to recover completely.

When you’re better, start training gently and build up gradually. Don’t try to make up for lost mileage – this may cause more damage or illness. Consider carefully whether or not you can run the race if you have been ill or injured.

Fit to race?

Don’t compete in a race if you feel unwell or have been ill recently. Competing may put you at risk of serious illness if you have a fever, have been vomiting, have had severe diarrhoea or any chest pains, or otherwise feel unwell. Don’t try to run just because you have collected sponsors to raise money for a charity – you will be able to compete in other races in future.

We are committed to ensuring you are fit to compete. We also advise you enter our events early, so you are able to plan your training programme with the appropriate lead in to your challenge and to make sure that you are ready and willing to take on the challenge.