Allyson Felix, U.S. Olympic Sprinter, Shares How She Prepares For A Race [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

Allyson Felix On How She Prepares For A Race by uSports

Allyson Felix is a U.S. sprinter and is competing in her fourth Olympics in Rio. She will be running in the 200 m, 400 m and 4X400 m relay. At the London Olympics she earned three gold medals in the 200 m, 4X100 m and 4X400 m sprints. She discussed her previous Olympic experience, role model and race day preparation with uSports.

Felix’s workouts are concentrated on track workouts and lifting in the gym.

“Six days a week, five hours a day and that’s time spent on the track doing speed workouts, endurance stuff, and then I spend three hours there [track] and two hours in the gym doing plyometrics, free weights, Olympic lifts,” she said.

Like many other athletes Felix has a role model, her role model broke a record the year before Felix was born.

“Evelyn Ashford is someone who continues to inspire me. I think she’s amazing, she competed in a time where there was enormous amounts of doping going on and she was really true and genuine and a true sprinter in my mind,” she said.

Ashford set a World Record in the 100 m in 1984 at 10.77 seconds and won the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Competing in the Olympics is different than any other race, Felix says. It’s a lot of pressure and it can be difficult to deal with competition away from home. Before a race Felix stays to herself and focuses on the technical parts of the race that will help her be successful.