Morning Run Or Afternoon Run

Which Is Best When It Comes To Training For Your Next Race

I've been given a task.

Don't worry, it's a really good idea, but after a lengthy discussion with my girlfriend this morning, she asked if I could put to rest and see what scientific research can tell us exactly what is the best time of day to train. I've always had the opinion that training in the morning, is better especially if you're races are in the morning as it gets your body used to running at the same time you're racing, but when you look through the research, it's not that clear.

Running Morning Vs Running Evening

A lot of the research I've gone through used similar scenarios to test performance during different times of the day. One study from the University of Liverpool Polytechnic, specifically used swimmers as different variables like lighting, temperature and weather can be ruled out of the study.

They had 14 competitive swimmers tested over two separate distances at 6.30am, 9.30am, 1.30pm, 5.00pm and 10.00pm. They found that times got faster as they swam later in the day with swim times at 10pm being 2.5% to 3.5% faster than their times at 6.30am. Which gives us some good research to say that for peak athletic performance, if all variables like temperature and weather are equal, is in the mid-afternoon into the later evening.

Another study from John Moores University, Liverpool, specifically chose cyclists that considered themselves as morning people. Their time trail performance showed slower bike times and produced much lower power output at 7.30am compared to 5.30pm. Most of the change in speed was attributed to a higher blood temperature of the athletes, with the capability of the cyclists to get their body temperature even higher in the afternoon.

This shows that times in the afternoon will be faster but asks the question, how can you perform at your best when racing so early in the morning?

Even though scientists have a number of reasons why we perform our best in the afternoon, there is a large body of anecdotal stories from runners that know, to feel their best on race morning, they need to adapt their training routines to simulate race conditions.

But Why Are Races Limited In The Evening

Race organizers are not going out of the their way to hold their races in the evenings and this generally has nothing to do with people setting faster times on race day. When it comes to marathons around the world, they're generally starting earlier as the years go by, despite the research showing faster times in the evening. A lot of this is due to making sure conditions that runners are running in are as desirable as possible, while making sure major roads are not closed during peak hours of the day. It also accounts for keeping volunteers and medical staff happy, to not take up a larger portion of their day. Even the Boston Marathon which is run on a Public Holiday, used to start at 12pm and has recently been moved to a start time of 10pm.

By the sounds of it, we should all be looking to enter the Rock 'n’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon as our "A" race this year as it is one of the major races out there that starts at 4.30pm.

Final Word On The Research

From all the research out there, all of it seems to be focused on the best time day to train or gain best results. I can see that research would be pretty difficult to specifically show:

Train Early, Race Early, What are the results?
Train Late, Race Early, What are the results?

A study held by the University Of Cape Town, did have some interesting insights as they surveyed athletes from both South Africa and the Netherlands. Their main goal was trying to determine if an athlete was either a morning person or evening person, and if scheduled race times may influence marathon participation and performance.

South African marathon runners were found to have higher numbers of "morning people" compared to the Dutch athletes, which was attributed to South African athletes wanting to have their training over before the heat of the day, as well as the earlier race start times in a majority of races in the country, compared to the Netherlands which did not have to worry about this issue due to the cooler climate. The study found that of the South African marathon runners, they performed better in races than the "evening people" from South Africa did, which could suggest training at a specific time of day preferentially improves your performance at that specific time of day.

Kirsty and I taking on the Christchurch Marathon.

Training To Our Schedule

Since we've been living and training together, both Kirsty and myself have came to a compromise where I don't get up as early as I used to so we can train together more often, especially on weekends. Kirsty will also get up early and train in the pool with a squad twice a week and we recently added an early run on a Friday to make sure she was getting her training session in, before a tough day at work. It basically evolved around our schedule to help us get the most out of our training and time together.

Summing It All Up

I'm not sure I have really done this subject justice as from what I can see there is no clear evidence on what the best option on training for your next race is. If anyone has any research or anecdotal evidence that can sway the argument either way, I would love to hear it. I hope I have provided a balanced report and will let you all decide for yourself.

About the Author
Hey I'm Vince, an Aussie living in New Zealand, trying my best to make the most of the time I have. I work as a Software Engineer but love to run and all aspects of it, including geeking out on the latest science to help get the most out of my body.