For everyone, the time comes, sooner or later, to tackle the two queen distances of running: the 42 km (and 195 metres!) and the 21 km (and 97 metres!).
Whether it is your first time or whether you are an experienced and consummate runner, it is always good to keep a few fundamental aspects in mind in order to select the ones best suited to your needs.
First of all, your ambitions.
For example, if you are aiming to set a personal best, certain components will need to be prioritised. If, on the other hand, your goal is less competitive, then the criteria will be broader and you will also be able to choose your event more easily on the basis of tourist and/or company preferences.
Fundamental, in any case (but especially for the more ambitious), is logistics.
A race that does not force you to radically disrupt your routine will always be preferable. Sleeping in your own bed, having breakfast at home, arriving at the race site without too many hours of travelling, easily finding parking and easily retrieving your race bib and packet, are undoubtedly factors that favour serenity, pre-race rest and the quest for a good performance.
Hand in hand with logistics is certainly the motivational component.
A race with little appeal, too close to home, with low participation and a low to medium level, will certainly not help you find the right motivation to cultivate your ambitions.
For these reasons, it will be important to select races that offer the right compromise between these aspects.
We mentioned above factors such as participation and level.
The first must be understood as both the level of the runners (to be able to find some companions with whom to share the fatigue, preferably a small group, and who will encourage us to maintain a good pace and grit our teeth), but also and above all the level of the public, which is fundamental to boosting morale and giving us the strength that inevitably fades after so many kilometres.
The second, on the other hand, helps to maintain high concentration and motivation. A medium-high level, moreover, favours the good appeal of a race and consequently acts as a driving force for participation and the quest for a good performance.
As we have said before, however, the truth lies in the middle, and it is therefore wise to try to make a synthesis between all these components. Because, if on the one hand the New York Marathon (for example!) always attracts tens of thousands of runners and is certainly the race with the greatest appeal in the world, on the other hand it will force us to radically upset all our habits, to change time zones, to go out of our ‘safety zone’ in a certain sense, and it is not certain that we will always be satisfied with our performance.
And after months of preparation, sacrifices (including financial ones) and daydreaming, it could also conceal an awakening that does not live up to our expectations.
So: eyes wide open and race calendar in hand!
And you, which races would you choose?
