I remember a time when I was a younger and doing a lot of road races, when you simply planned your racing calendar on the fly as you went through the year. For better or worse, those days are over. Now we’re planning, developing, mulling over, and plopping down big bucks on those race calendars.
I will confess that planning ahead is not my strong point and there have been many registration deadlines I’ve missed. Due to missing events in the past, I start thinking about the race calendar well in advance now – at least six and sometimes 12 months in advance.
Here are some things to consider when planning your race calendar and why it’s not always a bad idea to procrastinate on securing that race entry.
First, I think it’s important to figure out your goals and how they fit with the rest of your life. Yeah, I know, that’s the obvious play, but some of you have different priorities and your race calendar isn’t the first thing you think about in the morning. For many of you it is. Your goals need to be inline with your priorities. This will help determine how much training might be involved and if your goals are realistic given your priorities.
If you’re trying to enter a race that feels very important to you and is difficult to get into, but you know you won’t have the time this year to adequately train, it’s neither fair to others nor to yourself to attempt that race. You won’t be happy with your performance.
After prioritizing your goals, lay out all the races, events, adventures, non-running time-sucks (that won’t let you train), and other challenges that may affect your ability to complete these goals. As you lay out races of interest you need to figure out what is involved in entering them. Is a qualifier needed, or entry points? Is there a registration lottery, possible wait list, or can you simply sign up the day before? Some events are easy to get into, some are not.
Let’s assume, for the sake of laying out the calendar, that you have a big goal race such as the Boston Marathon. This is a race that may potentially take several years of planning to complete. Training is going to need to be on point, and you’ll need to finish a qualifier marathon.
Go through each race on your list and figure out the entry process. Add the date registration opens as well as anything else pertinent on your calendar. If it’s a lottery entry, for example, you’ll probably want to have a back up plan just in case. Some races may never fill up and it’s not important to sign up right away, but you may incur the cost of waiting when entry fees go up. However, early registration means you won’t be out as much money if you get injured or plans change. On races that I know will not fill up I like waiting until the last possible moment to register, but I’m also someone that likes options, and race directors really hate that.
When thinking about what races to put when, how close together to place them, and how many to do, consider the following advice. I like to have, at most, two to three big goal races per year spaced somewhat evenly a few months apart. These are my “A” races and spacing them out allows for possible injury setbacks, proper training, and specialization for the distance, course, and conditions that you might encounter. These are also usually the races that become difficult to get into, so think about them far in advance.