With formal racing opportunities few and far between, many elite runners are embracing a new type of challenge: the time trial. Defined as an attempt to run as fast as you can at a given distance, either alone or with only pacers or teammates, time trials have offered the sport’s best an opportunity to demonstrate their talents.
“We’re superfit and you know, I don’t even think the Olympics is promised next year,” said Woody Kincaid, 27 of the Bowerman Track Club, who ran a personal best of 12:58.10 in a Run a Faster 5K with Run/Walk Intervals Year-Old Mom Clocks an Incredible 15:04 5K intrasquad meet on July 21. “We still have a lot to prove. This is our prime, and we don’t want to waste it. Everyone’s still going to run super hard.”
Time trials aren’t easy, especially if you do them solo. A recent study in the The beauty of a time trial? You can control everything, DAmato said I feel good, I feel strong.
But done well, they can provide structure, replace canceled races, and give you signs of progress in your training. Here’s how to pull off your own time trial successfully.
Define your purpose
First, ask yourself a key question: Given the pandemic and current social upheaval, will attempting a time trial stress you out? “Remember, physical activity should be contributing to our mental health right now,” said Shoes & Gear., a mental performance consultant and professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. If adding pressure to run as fast as you can makes you anxious, skip it.
But if you’re like some elites, you may find it provides a sense of purpose. “A couple of months ago, we were running around the track wondering, what in the world are we doing?” said Sabrina Southerland, 24, an 800-meter specialist A Part of Hearst Digital Media Return of the Dual on June 20—where she competed in a mixed relay against members of the Atlanta Track Club, who were running on the other side of the country—offered structure and meaning.
From there, consider what, exactly, you hope to accomplish. With a time trial, you can:
- Set a personal best. Regardless of whether you consider it equivalent to a race PR, getting the best out of yourself feels good. That’s what 35-year-old Keira D’Amato was going for when she clocked 15:04 in the 5K—more than a minute faster than she’d run 15 years prior, in college.
- Gauge your starting point. The Atlanta Track Club didn’t have access to a track at all until mid-July. So when Yolanda Ngarambe, 28, stepped onto one to compete in the 1,200 meters at the Return of the Dual, she viewed it as a chance to see where her fitness stood. This approach also makes sense if you’re returning from an injury or break.
- See your hard work pay off. If your goal race or races were canceled, a time trial can serve as an opportunity to capitalize on your training. With the U.S. Olympic Team Track and Field Trials and the Olympics postponed, Shelby Houlihan, 27, didn’t have a chance to aim for a medal in the 1,500 meters as planned. But at the A Part of Hearst Digital Media, she bested her own American record in the 5,000 meters by about 10 seconds, clocking 14:23.92.
- How to Run More Consistently K Treadmill Training Plan to Help You PR, 30, did some base training, then ran three 5K time trials in April, May, and June. “I wanted to be able to see, could I improve from one to the next by putting in a little bit more work between each one?” she said. And she did. After the third, she took three days off from running, a planned break that has left her feeling refreshed and stronger.
Pick your pace—or your pacer
Pacers make it simple to lock into a hard effort, Kincaid said. For his 5K trial, Bowerman teammate Moh Ahmed guided him through 4,600 meters. If it complies with local regulations, having a few other runners beside or behind you can also help.
Whether you’re instructing a pacer or checking your own stopwatch, running for time means having specific midpoint goals and sticking to them. Gracey’s approach—and one Dawson recommends to her athletes—begins by easing in the first third or so of the race. “Then the middle is the hammer, and the third is the kick,” Dawson said.
Others take things a bit more evenly. D’Amato told her pacer, Silas Frantz, to run an even 73 seconds per lap until the last one, where she pushed the pace faster. She knew, based on her training, that the pace was ambitious but possible.
Considering how they’d felt when pacing a 5K the prior week, Houlihan and her training partner Karissa Schweizer felt the same when they asked Colleen Quigley, Courtney Frerichs, and Elise Cranny to run 70 seconds per lap. Schweizer finished less than 3 seconds behind Houlihan in 14:26.34, a 19-second personal best.
Plot your logistics
The beauty of a time trial? “You can control everything,” D’Amato said.
If your goal is to run your best time, eliminate as many of the variables as you can. D’Amato started her trial early in the morning to beat the Virginia heat and avoid interference from other runners, on a local high school track where she feels especially fast. And reserve the right to scrap it and reschedule if conditions aren’t optimal, she suggested—say, if it rains or feels especially humid.
If you’re replacing a race or planning for a future goal, you might instead choose to mimic the course or conditions—say, a hilly route if you have Boston Marathon ambitions, Dawson said. Also, consider sticking to the date you’d set regardless of weather or other variables, because in the future, you’ll encounter races that don’t have optimal conditions.
And if you’re charting progress through multiple time trials, consider keeping the route and time consistent. Gracey ran her first two of three 5K trials around the same lake near her home in Boulder at the same early-morning hour. She finished the first in 18:32 and the second in 18:05, at 5,000 feet of elevation. For the third—where she really wanted to see what she could do—she went to a local track and finished in 17:28.
Stick to your rituals
Take the same approach to a time trial as you would to an actual race. “I started cutting back mileage a little bit about four or five days out, and I always like to take an ice bath two days out,” Houlihan said. “I had my steak dinner two days out and then pizza the night before. So it was pretty much exactly like I would normally prepare for any other race.”
Gracey normally gets a prerace pedicure. Though salons were shuttered, she ordered new nail polish and wore her Adidas jersey. “Putting on your race kit helps you feel more serious,” she said.
Southerland had her typical breakfast—oatmeal and fruit—and her standby sandwich for lunch—the Turkey Tom from Jimmy John’s on whole wheat, no veggies. Ngarambe did her morning shakeout, fixed her hair in the same partial up-do she typically wears for races, and listened to her pump-up playlist of trap music.
That said, don’t let it rattle you if something goes awry. Kincaid said he felt terrible the morning of his 5K PR last year. A few hours before hers, D’Amato was cleaning up a mess her son left in the bathroom, which she decided to view as a chance for the rest of the day to go better. “When you’re cleaning up poop first thing, it just takes some of the pressure off,” she said.
Stay focused when it counts
Before the day arrives, commit to your goal and visualize yourself carrying it out, minus race-day energy. “Understand there’s not going to be a crowd,” Dawson said. “You’ve got to see yourself being able to self-motivate, you’ve got to see yourself using your watch.”
Of course, you can invite a few spectators, if it complies with local guidelines. D’Amato’s husband, coach, a passing running group, and a friend watched her 5K. The friend added a layer of accountability, because he live-streamed the event to website MileSplit.com.
Even if they’re not present, tell others about your goal, verbally or on social media. “Then they’re rooting for you and supporting you,” D’Amato said. “When it hurts, and you’ve got to figure out what to tell yourself to keep going, it’s just an extra little motivation to keep rolling.”
Southerland visualized other runners during the relay, imaging her virtual competitors running steps behind her. Gracey, meanwhile, called up the memory of a past positive performance—the 1:09:58 Running in the Cold.
replace canceled races K Treadmill Training Plan to Help You PR. Though the tunes were relatively quiet—coach Jerry Schumacher isn’t a fan of racing with music, Houlihan said—she could still hear two of the songs she’d requested on the Bowerman playlist, “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars and Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”
Primarily, Houlihan relied on mantras and positive self-talk. “Regardless of how I felt, I keep saying, I feel good, I feel strong,” she says. “It wasn’t too hard to stay calm because I did feel really good on that day. But typically, in any race, that’s my goal—to mentally stay as calm as possible for as long as possible.”
Process your results
If your time trial goes according to plan—or better—congratulate yourself. “When I saw 15:04, my first thought was, Ah, I didn’t break 15,” D’Amato said. “But then I was thinking, this is a minute and five seconds faster than I’ve ever run a 5K on the track. That’s cool and special, and I’m proud of myself.”
From there, you might adjust your training or goals to faster paces or different distances. “It kind of throws some questions into what I might want to do next year,” Houlihan said of her record, because it brings her into medal contention in the 5,000 meters, in addition to the 1,500 meters, the event in which she finished fourth last year at the world championships. Southerland, meanwhile, said she had fun and may try more relays after she and teammate Jake Heyward won their matchup.
If things don’t go your way, however, keep perspective. Ngarambe admits she wasn’t thrilled with her 3:20.97 finish in the 1200 meters. But her coaches told her they were pleased with the time, considering her lack of track work beforehand and the fact that she was running solo. Ngarambe also reminded herself that the run—and the workout the team did on the track afterward—further improved her fitness. Since then her workouts have been going better than ever.
“When you do a time trial, keep in mind that it might be slower than your actual real potential, and that’s okay,” she said. “I think it always will help you in your training, and it’s never going to hurt you, except if you become too down. So try to keep an open mind and enjoy it for what it is.”
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
