Stage Racing

I’m in Cyprus at the moment, wearing my other hat as a race director.

The event is the Leptos Cyprus 4-day Challenge, which consists of a 6km time trial on day one, with runners going off in a random order 10secs apart. Day 2 is the 11km Hill race, rising from sea level to a village church at 600mts altitude. Day 3, a hilly mixed terrain half marathon through the Akamas National Forest, and lastly, Day 4, a 10km on the road from Paphos Harbour.

I’m often asked how best to train for these stage events, which are popular at this time of year. My answer would be to look at what the particular demands of the event you are doing are, and prepare for these.

Firstly, you will require the knack of getting out of bed the next day with sore legs and racing all over again. You can train for this with back-to-back tempo runs, or run a parkrun on Saturday and a longer race on Sunday, so you are mentally attuned to the demands of running on tired legs.

In the case of the Cyprus Challenge, 32 of 48km is on hilly trail, so training on trails is ideal – and also be half marathon fit, as most damage can be done on this event on day 3.

More than anything, success in a stage race is paying attention to pacing.

In Cyprus we start with the individual time trial over 6km. Runners go off in random ability order, so you will have faster and slower runners around you. Firstly, it is our way of making sure runners don’t cruise the event, which is achieved because runners lose the normal pacing parameters of starting with runners of their ability. Get the pace wrong and go too fast and lactic acid builds quickly and that soreness is with you for the four races.

The longest race is the trail half marathon, most time can be gained, or lost, in this race. So the day before it is prudent not to push the hill race too hard, two or three minutes gained on the hill could be 10 mins lost in the half marathon next day.

Day 4, the 10km, everything is sorted in terms of knowing what you have to do to hold your overall position, and you may have the luxury of a sizable cushion, if not you may be having to sit on your nearest rival or have them sit on you! Everyone is tired for the 10km, and it tends to equal out in times, with most 2 or 3 minutes down on their average.

The key is as much pace judgement and racing strategy over the four days as pre-event training….