Most athletes I work with have never truly "peaked" for a race. They may plan their race season and prioritize their events (typically categorizing them as A, B, or C races), but few have actually taken the necessary steps to achieve peak performance on their most important day.

Simply labelling a race as our "A" race is insufficient; effective training and preparation are essential to reach peak performance. A common mistake is designating too many races as "A" or "B," leading to a season where training is frequently interrupted by tapering and recovery periods.

To peak for a race, we need two crucial components:

1. Very high fitness.

2. A taper, which involves training less in the lead-up to the race, allows for some loss of fitness in order to be fresh on race day.

It’s important to note that during a taper, we will lose some fitness. If too many races are treated as equally important and we compete frequently, we will spend a significant amount of time losing fitness over the year. This is in direct conflict with the need for very high fitness to peak effectively.

Based on my years of coaching, I have observed that most athletes can only achieve top-level performance peaks once a year. Even many professionals struggle with this. For the majority of athletes, especially those who are not genetically gifted (consider those with semi-professional status and low demands from work or family), I recommend the following race season planning:

- 1 x A race: This is the event we focus on peaking for and where we aim for an exceptional performance. We spend the whole year focused on this mentally. We put all our commitments into this outcome. We base all decisions on this one race.

- 2-4 x B races: For these, we only taper slightly but not as much as for the A race. Performance at these races will usually be good but not necessarily so. (Schedule 4 if they are close together or paired, or very near to the A race; limit to 2 if they are spaced out.)

- Everything else should be considered a C race: These involve no taper and minimal recovery afterwards. Ideally, select races that fit this classification; for example, a solo 24-hour race, or a very hard 100 mile, would require significant recovery, so it shouldn't be classified as a C race. Anything that can't be recovered from and repeated a week later has to be category A or B if we are serious about our A race.