Your Best Turkey Trot Time Ever: 5 Tips To Improve Your 5k
Thanksgiving’s just around the corner, and that means it’s time for a day full of food, family, and football.
But before all of that delicious fun starts? It’s time for your local Turkey Trot.
These Thanksgiving Day foot races serve as more than just a way to burn a few calories before you load in a few thousand. They’re also a way to spend time with family, support the community, and don a few turkey-themed pieces of apparel.
And you won’t be alone in going out for a jog as a Turkey Trot is an event that one million people participate in each year. Given the race’s sillier aspects - not too many Olympic races feature turkey drumstick hats - it’s easy to take the race less seriously.
Still, Thanksgiving is a day about subtle competitions, from who brings the best side dish to whose team wins Thursday Night Football. So if you’re looking for a competitive edge and want to burst out of the gates to your best Turkey Trot time ever, we’ve got you covered.
Today we’re sharing five tips that can shave seconds off your 5k time - without months of preparation.
5 Ways To Improve Your 5k Time
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Add Some Hills - One of the simplest ways to get yourself ready for race day is to add in some hill workouts before the trot. While simple doesn’t mean easy - you’ll feel the burn in your lungs and calves - hill workouts are an ideal way to develop a bit more power and speed without having to overthink your training.
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Save The Drinks For T-Day - While the family gatherings and good times may not be confined to just Thanksgiving, do your race day performance a favor and wait until Thanksgiving to enjoy a drink. Given that drinking can affect your sleep and your body’s ability to store endurance-aiding glycogen, you’re better off sticking to sparkling cider on Wednesday and saving the hard cider for Thursday.
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Take It Easy - You want to run fast, so you’ve been training fast. That checks out. But be wary about pushing yourself to 100 in all of your workouts. Easy runs help your body recover so you can enjoy more speed on race day.
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Enjoy A Taper - Thought winding down your training before a race was just for marathons? Not true! According to Runners World, you can also enjoy tapering the last week before a 5k race with a shorter-than-normal long run, more days off, and rehearsing your strategy.
- Don’t Be A Turkey - Turkeys are known to be a little less than brilliant (though the idea of them drowning by looking up while it rains seems to be a myth), so the key to your 5k Turkey Trot performance is to be smarter than your average turkey. Think through your race performance, the paces you’d like to hit, and the course route to be better prepared to leave the rest of those Turkey Trot turkeys in the dust.
Regardless of whether you do end up setting your best 5k time ever, know that completing the 5k is an achievement that unlocks part of our IRLA Running Pack.
And don’t forget to let us know which Turkey Trots you’ll be running in below!