Taper: can be described as decreasing exercise before an important competition; it designed to create optimal performance on race day.
Typically tapering for marathon is approximately 3 weeks from race day. The goal of tapering is to get your body into peak performance for the race. As Greg McMillan states in his article “Don’t Taper. PEAK!” you do not want to change your weekly running routine. Decreasing your regular routine can lead to feeling flat on race day. Gradually ease off mileage over your tapering period (2-3 weeks prior to race day). McMillan also states, “more runners fail because of tapering too much rather than no enough”. Part of keeping up with your regular run routine is keeping up the intensity of your runs even though mileage has decreased. This allows your body peak on race day and not feel tired and stale.
To recap, by the time you get to taper portion of your training your body is fatigued due to accumulation of long miles and hard intervals, it key for your body recover, muscles to rebuild and to keep your body primed from racing.
When the pre-race nerves set in remind yourself of all the training to you already done! You have put in all the hard work; the next few weeks is discipline to not push your body to hard. You got this. Race day is celebration of everything you accomplished. CONGRATULATIONS!
My taper for the Calgary Marathon has started, two weeks to go until race day. Yes, I have also looked at the long-term weather report for race day. It looks like a lot a lot of rain- the 14-day weather forecast don’t mean much right??
My taper schedule:
Two gradual step down runs from the long slow runs (20km and 12km)
Keep my standard 10km and 12km steady pace runs
One interval run each week:
1000m x1, 800m x2, 600m x1, 400m x2 and 200m x1 with 1min break between each (last week)
1000m x2, 800m x2, 600m x2 400mx 2 1 min break between each (this week)
600m x3, 400mx2 3x strides (200m) 1 min beak between each (race week- either Wednesday or Thursday with the race being on Sunday)
Overall; I still aiming to run 4 times a week.
Tips:
1. It is normal to feel tired during taper weeks, due to the accumulation of long runs and hard intervals in the previous week
2. Positive thoughts only till race day: STOP looking at the weather forecast 😛
3. You are ready to run and nail this race
What do you do for your taper run? How do you stay prepare for race day?
I referenced Greg McMillan article Don’t Taper. PEAK! for portions of my above article. McMillan running is a great source for runners out there, I highly recommended it.
McMillan, G. (2017, December 19). DON’T TAPER. PEAK! Retrieved May 13, 2019, from https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/dont-taper-peak/
