Shakeout runs, race by race

A shakeout run is the short, easy jog the day before your race — three to five kilometres to loosen your legs and settle your nerves. Run it as a heart and it becomes the thing your whole start line shares on Strava the morning before. What a shakeout run is.

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Shakeout run questions

What is a shakeout run?

A shakeout run is the short, easy jog runners do the day before a race — typically 20 to 30 minutes at a conversational pace. It loosens legs stiffened by the taper and settles pre-race nerves without costing you anything on race day.

How long should a shakeout run be?

Set it by time, not distance: 20 to 30 minutes of easy running. That works out to roughly 3.6 to 5.5 km for a sub-3:00 runner and 2.4 to 3.5 km for a five-hour runner, so pick the length that matches your goal time.

Why run a heart shape as a shakeout?

The shakeout is the one run of race weekend with no performance stake, which makes it the run worth sharing. A heart-shaped route turns a routine jog into a GPS drawing your whole start line sees on Strava the morning before the race.

Not racing? A heart works on any morning that matters. Make a heart in your city.