August 9, 2013 | No author

Pre-race work-out

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Proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance. ~ Military Adage


For the past several years, I have implemented the same pre-race strategy: take 2 days before the event completely off, run my pre-race workout the day before, get off my feet. For those of you looking for a good, pre-race workout, here’s my approach (thanks to World Champ, Mark Plaatjes):


  • Warm up for 20 minutes
  • Do 4, 20-second strides
  • Run 1-mile at race pace
  • Get off your feet


Today, I did this workout up at my house, so the warm-up was a little spicier than I would have liked (given that there are approximately 150 meters of consecutive “flat” places to run anywhere near my place) but the strides felt progressively better as I worked through them. I give myself enough time to recover completely between each set, then recover completely before trying to lock in my race pace for the prescribed mile. Today, I was a bit on the fast side but it was good to shake things out. Since I don’t normally race half marathons, I am not as familiar with my pacing so I went out a little too hard, then backed off in the second half mile. Still was about 15 seconds faster than my fantasy target race pace but I felt solid.


I am using tomorrow’s race from Georgetown to Idaho Springs (GTIS) to get my head wrapped around logistics a bit. New York is going to require some patience in the early morning lead-in to the race. Guessing I’ll be taking a train to the ferry and then jumping on a bus to the start line so I am going to use the bus-to-start cluster tomorrow to get myself more in tune with that nonsense and “practice” the waiting game that I’ll inevitably face in November at NYC.



Tomorrow’s race should be interesting. I have only raced two other half marathons. The first was in March before I raced Boston and I felt like I put in a pretty solid effort. The second was a couple months after Boston in the run-up to San Francisco and that one was a bit of a disaster. I have three goals in mind but am mostly focused on starting a bit conservatively and finishing strong. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Two videos…

February 20, 2026
In case you hadn’t seen these (and also for my friends at Adventure Film ), here are a couple of must-see running movies from Joel Wolpert:  Geoff Roes: Slogging to the Top
Runner in blue and red gear sprints across grassy terrain, mountains in background, cloudy sky.

Long time running…

October 27, 2015
Guess who’s back. Back again. ~ Eminem  Still working out some kinks in the site but hoping to be more active and on the regular up in this joint. Quick catch up: 2013: NYC was a bust. I experienced a heel problem which led to a hamstring problem and I shut down my quest for an NYC finish. At least for now. The remainder of 2013 was spent trying to get uninjured. 2014: Injuries persisted in 2014. When the heel/hammy started feeling ready to run again, I broke my ankle bouldering. Literally came off the wall a foot and a half off the ground and popped my ankle. Whee. So more recovery and I pretty much switched to riding mountain bikes for the year. 2015: Back at it in 2015. Running pretty well. A bit off my game from day’s past but still having fun. Even entered a few races which didn’t go well. Just trying to figure things out and stay happy/healthy. More to come, I promise. ~stubert.
Person fixing a flat tire on a mountain bike outdoors; green helmet, tan shirt, shorts.

Tabatas: Under-appreciated fitness boosters

August 24, 2013
I hurt myself today . ~ N.I.N. Ah the Tabata. Some people hate them, others love them. In the moment, they can be the bane of my existence but after rocking out a few sets, I really tend to notice the benefits. For the uninitiated, a Tabata can be applied to virtually any exercise type (cycling; swimming; push-ups; chess, I assume) but since I am a runner, I tend to knock these out while running. Go figure. Here’s the formula: Go as hard as you can for 20 seconds Rest for 10 seconds Repeat 8 times Feel free to do multiple sets Four minutes (per set) of activity doesn’t sound like much, but if done correctly, these can really help boost your fitness. I tend to replace strides with one Tabata on Fridays and will work in multiple sets as part of my Tuesday interval training. Just keep good form, really work the 20s and you’ll reap the benefits. ~stubert.