Best time for a massage ?

You shouldn't get a massage immediately before a race or important training session.  Just like in a weight training session, some muscle and soft tissue damage is being done and needs time to be repaired. 

Save it for a few days after your race.

If you're going to get a massage before an event, you can get a good stretching one for 30 min the days before.  Like 2 days before.  But just stretching.

Directly afterwards, you can get a flushing massage.  No damage done, just light stretching and flushing of the muscles.

A couple of days afterwards, you can get a deeper massage.

I am a HUGE believer in Deep tissue massage for resetting the muscles.  Scout7, yes, you do tighten up, but it's better to get them reset so you're back to a comfortable start instead of getting tighter and tighter. 

Just my 2 cents.  But I'm lucky because my wife is a NCMT.

Speaking from direct experience, being married to a massage therapist results in far fewer massages than one would expect.. 

I just got a membership to a massage joint and I used it for the first time last week.  My tri was on Saturday, and I got the full-body massage on Thursday evening for 1 hour.  it was thorough and relaxing.  i ended up having my best race ever on Saturday.  i've never felt better during competition, and the results speak for themselves.

i am now a believer in massage therapy, and i will aim to get one once or twice a month.

~B

I think the question here is whether you want to get a full body swedish massage or a deep-tissue massage.  The cellular damage described here would be more typical of a deep-tissue massage aimed at really getting down into the muscles and correcting chronic stiffnesses and moving built-up lactic acid. 

A swedish massage - being more of a 'feel-good' massage - would perhaps be more suitable for a pre-race massage since they do not get deep into the muscles and are more geared toward relaxation - physical and mental.

If you are hardcore, get a swedish massage before the race and a deep-tissue afterwards.. wouldn't that be nice!!  If only I could drop $100+ for massages for every race..

<sub><sup>I vote never. Never had one myself. I don't see the use, since I'm going to tighten back up afterwards anyways.

To wind down or relax the night before an event, I have a beer or two (maybe even three).
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It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.</sup></sub>

_{^{Gotta try a little love and tenderness there Scout. Go Big Green!!}}

I've always been the "wait until two days or more after" type.  In other words, Sunday race, Tuesday or Wednesday massage.

HOWEVER...due to my LMT going out of town, this week it was Monday night after the Sunday race or never--so I did it.  I went in there pretty well unable to bend my knee or walk down stairs and barely able to push the clutch on my car (my knee flared up BAD during the race...see RR) and left 99% functional.  She just took it slightly easier than she normally would have.  That isn't saying much...she is good at torture!

So, day after the race seemed pretty good to me and I won't necessarily avoid it in the future!