When should you stop doing hard workouts before your race?

As counterintuitive as they sound, there’s a place for a workout in the week leading up to your big race. While you certainly want to taper and rest, you’ll want to do some kind of modified workout to boost your confidence and optimize your performance. But when should you stop doing hard workouts before your race?

Ideally, your last hard workout should be 10 days before your race, and then you should immediately start your taper. There’s no need to cram hard workouts in on race week to gain extra fitness; that approach will do you more harm than good.

Race week workouts are not intended to build your fitness; their purpose is to improve muscle tension, so that your legs feel energized rather than flat. In his book The Science of Running, coach Steve Magness discusses how different types of workouts affect muscle tension. The amount of tension in a muscle varies based on one’s training and rest. Easy runs will lower muscle tension, and a workout at or near race pace can raise the muscle tension just enough to stay in that optimal zone for racing. Doing too little or too much can leave your legs flat.

While you are tapering your volume, you are also sharpening for running as fast as you can to achieve your goal. If you are accustomed to doing one or two hard workouts per week, a week of only easy runs would throw you off your routine. Here are a few workouts you should consider on race week to help you feel ready.