Morning vs evening race performance

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J2R Aug 2015 6:22pm, 24 Aug 2015 139 posts	0 J2R I ran a 5K race at 9:15 am yesterday morning, and even allowing for the warm weather I was puzzled why my performance was so much down on what I expected it to be. It's the first 5K race I've run in the morning, though (apart from Parkruns, which I tend to treat differently) - all others have been late afternoon or early evening events. Having spoken to a couple of people after the run who mentioned about mornings, I wonder how much (if at all) I was affected by that biorhythm business, where apparently people tend to run the best times later in the day. Obviously I've run a lot of other distances in the morning, but the 5K makes specific demands of pace which I found great difficulty delivering. I just found I could not get up to the required speed without a lot of effort, whereas in my previous 5K, 9 days earlier, I had to slow down after the first km because I was going too fast, finding it too easy, if you like. Is this familiar to anyone? Has anyone else noticed a pattern whereby morning races are harder than evening ones, particularly 5Ks, and if so, how much difference do you feel it makes?
MudMeanderer Aug 2015 7:45pm, 24 Aug 2015 1,578 posts	0 MudMeanderer I'm similar - I knocked best part of a minute off a (long standing) 5k pb in the course of about 4 days. The warm up was similar (over distance, with some hard efforts toward the end), and although one course was quicker, not that much so. The main difference was one was a parkrun, and the other a 7.30pm evening race. I recall an article in Cycling Weekly a while ago that cited a paper that had looked at this. The trend was for late afternoon/early evening to be the fastest time of day, though not by a huge margin. However for a decent number of the cases, there was in excess of 20% difference between best and worst time of day. This worked both ways if I recall correctly. I'll try and find the article.
Reinhold Messner Aug 2015 9:08pm, 24 Aug 2015 707 posts	0 Reinhold Messner Yes - morning (which I define as any time before lunch) is a bad time to try to run fast, inevitable exceptions about "my mate set his PB at the parkrun" notwithstanding.
chunkywizard Aug 2015 9:27pm, 24 Aug 2015 866 posts	0 chunkywizard I like mornings better and tend to be faster. I think it's a heat thing, I run better when it's cooler.
Dvorak Aug 2015 11:21pm, 24 Aug 2015 10,694 posts	0 Dvorak I need to be up for a couple of hours before I'll really hit my stride (something I fairly often don't manage for parkruns) but apart from that, no real difference. A few peopel have mentioned to me that they don't really get on with evening races but never as far as I recall the other way round. I'm a bit curious how most of your races have been late afternoon or early evening, though.
sLickster Aug 2015 11:32pm, 24 Aug 2015 1,753 posts	0 sLickster I hardly ever trained or raced on a morning, except Sunday (races) and I'm not a morning person in general. parkrun then came along and even though I run there ever week, my body still isn't top performing - I'm over a minute down from a 7pm 5k PB. I do tend to run better when I've been awake so when I travel a distance for a parkrun I'm more awake!
DazTheSlug Aug 2015 12:06am, 25 Aug 2015 1,212 posts	0 DazTheSlug I perform very poorly early in the morning if I have to try to run fast I have given up doing parkruns full stop and I would never enter a 10k or Half if it started before 11:00am mid-afternoon or evening and I perform much better
J2R Aug 2015 9:12am, 25 Aug 2015 140 posts	0 J2R Interesting! Dvorak, there's a series of 3 midweek evening races locally each summer which I usually do, plus another regular late afternoon race. It may be significant that my 10k PB has usually been set at a midweek evening race, too, and was again this year.
Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) Aug 2015 9:23am, 25 Aug 2015 22,294 posts	0 Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs) I know of the race series you are referring to J2R, having sneaked a look at your profile, I used to be a gazelle before I moved to the Midlands The course (unless it has changed) has a fantastic downhill finish, a particular favourite of mine I like evening races too but there aren't many around.
timaru Aug 2015 9:29am, 25 Aug 2015 278 posts	0 timaru I run better in the evening, but thats because I cannot get out of bed for a morning run..... I was told by a sucessful runner of years gone by, that running in the morning is ok and should be no different to any other time providing you eat before hand. The body need food to expend and ovenight whilst we sleep we are starving our bodies. Makes sence I suppose. Before I started my current job, I worked a 9 to 5, I used to get up at 6 eat brekkie, go back to bed or do someting, then an hour later go for a run. Seemed to work ok for me, but then got injured and aint done much recently. Now I start at 6.45 am so no more of that malarkey.