What do you do the week of a race? Specifically, what do you do the week of a 5K race? Do you reduce your miles? If so, how? When? Do you take the day or two before the race off from running? Do you change anything else--cross-training, eating, etc.?

I've now run 3 5K races, and I have one this Saturday, and one next Saturday, and I am still not sure what to do the week of a race!

In the week before my first race, I finished up the Couch-to-5K Running Plan on the Wednesday before the Jingle Bell Run (a Saturday race), so I took Thursday and Friday off from running, though I did do upper body strength training in the early afternoon the day of the race (evening race).

In the week before my second race, the Cowtown 5K, I also planned on two days off before the race. My training program at the time, Hal Higdon's Intermediate 5K Training Program, had a 5K test race scheduled for that weekend with 2 days of rest prior to the race. The day before the race I did an upper body strength training workout, along with several pick-ups between my strength training sets. I ran the Cowtown in 28:45, which was nearly 2.5 minutes faster than my Jingle Bell Run time. Of course my training and weight loss played a large part in that improvement.

In the week before my most recent race, the Bunny Boogie, I also had two days of rest scheduled prior to race day. On Thursday before the race I did upper body strength training and yoga. Friday was a complete rest day (with a couple of margaritas, wine, and Tex-Mex for dinner). Of course, I set a PR and came in 2nd in my age-group.

So what's the proper approach? We've had some pretty nasty storms blow in this evening, so I am not likely to run today, making two days off since my last run, though I did do some cross-training yesterday. I don't really want to go four days between my last run and the race, so I think I'll go out for an easy 4 miles tomorrow early. Tell me what you think.