The marathon analogy

So I was at a staff meeting and was called out as someone that trains for marathons (which isn't quite true, but come March 2 that box will be checked and I will have run one finally).  Anyway the point was we looked at the training schedule for someone preparing for a marathon and the analogy was we don't cram all of our miles into the last weeks or two, and similarly we shouldn't be cramming in all of our content in at the last minute either when preparing for our exams.

I get and understand the premise of this but I'm not sure it's entirely true.  Most teachers (I'm assuming here I know) don't try to cram all their material in at the end of their respective courses but they do want to use those last few days to review.  Now, should those last few days just be doing practice exams, no of course not.  And with the analogy, it's correct, those are things that should be done earlier on and not done all at the end of the year/semester. 

But proper training requires those last few days before the race to be your tune-up.  You still strength train and run a few miles during that last week to prepare.  Just as you still work on and refine the skills and content you've taught all year.  Should it be more than just practice exams and kahoot games, sure.  But the point of this wasn't about refining how we review, it was avoid cramming and basically lighten up during that last week.  I'm not I agree with that mindset, especially when many teachers unfortunately go from day 1 until exams teaching content.  In history it is especially difficult because we're always left having to cut content and hoping that what we neglect or only brush upon isn't a main point of emphasis on the test. 

I don't know if I had a point to all this, but it bugged me enough to write about it.  Certainly what we do as teachers should constantly be interwoven as best we can throughout our year, but a balance should exist at the end, review and "strength training" until the end is necessary.  Even if it kind of kills this cool analogy

Any ideas or thoughts about this concept, I'd love to hear them in comments to discuss or you can find me on twitter