How to plan your race calendar for the year
Two goal races a year, the rest as training. How to space events so you actually arrive at them fit, and why signing up for everything is the fastest route to a flat season.
Table of contents
The most common race-calendar mistake is not doing too few. It is signing up for everything that looks fun in January and arriving at October tired, slightly injured and slower than in March.
Pick two goal races
Two per year is what most people can properly peak for. One in spring, one in autumn, avoiding the deep heat of summer and the worst of winter.
A goal race is one you build a training block towards and taper for. Everything else is either a training race or a day out, and it is worth being honest with yourself about which is which before you enter.
Spacing
- Between two goal races of the same distance: at least three months. You need recovery, then a fresh build.
- After a marathon: most sensible plans allow several weeks of easy running before structured training resumes.
- After a half: two to three weeks of easy running is usually enough.
- 5K and 10K recover fast — you can race these every few weeks if you keep the intensity elsewhere sensible.
The reason spacing matters is that a training block only works if you start it recovered. Stacking blocks without a gap produces the specific pattern of getting slightly slower across a season while training harder.
Training races
These are useful and underrated. A 10K six weeks before a goal half is a genuinely good workout, a rehearsal of the morning logistics, and a check on your fuelling — which you should never be trying for the first time on a goal day.
The rule is that you run them without tapering. If you take a rest week for a training race, it stopped being a training race.
Building the year backwards
Start from the goal race date and count back:
- Race day
- Taper — one to three weeks depending on distance
- Build — eight to sixteen weeks of specific training
- Base — whatever comes before, all easy running
Doing it in this order shows you immediately whether the plan is possible. If a race is ten weeks away and a proper build needs sixteen, you have found that out in January rather than in week twelve.
What to check before entering
- Is the date realistic given where your fitness actually is now, not where you hope it will be
- What is the weather usually like, since a summer half in a hot climate is a different event to a spring one
- Is there travel involved, which is a training disruption as well as an expense
- Does the entry refund or defer, because injuries happen and knowing the policy beforehand removes one bad decision
Leaving space
Plan around 80% of your calendar and leave the rest empty. Something will come up — an illness, a work trip, a race a friend talks you into. A calendar with no slack breaks the first time reality touches it.
And if you are still building towards a first distance rather than a race season, the 10K plan is a better place to start than an entry form.
