Do you look forward to tapering or fear it? “What is supposed to be a relaxing time to rest and recover … [can be] a time of intense anxiety,” writes Stephanie Kinnon in an article titled “The Terror of Tapering.”
Tapering can be stressful. Many questions may be running through your mind.
- Should I taper?
- Will I lose my fitness if I back off?
- Have I trained enough?
- Can I squeeze in one more interval session or long run?
- When should I start my taper?
- How much should I run and how hard?
Pause. Take a few deep breaths. Relax.
Yes, you should taper for a big race. A “big” race is one you want to do well in whether that’s ¼-mile or 100.
Training is a repeated process of stress followed by recovery and build. When you train, you stress your body. Your body responds to the stress by building back stronger if you don’t overstress it and give it time to recover. In the midst of training, you don’t fully recover. You want to recover enough to continue training at the level you need to continue to build your fitness.
For a big race, you want more of a recovery. That doesn’t mean complete rest. It means doing enough to keep your body’s systems primed to race while but allowing your body a greater recovery. No, you will not lose any significant fitness. I’ll get into how below. For now, don’t underestimate the value of fresh legs.
No, you probably shouldn’t try to squeeze in one last hard workout close to a big race.
The question “Have I done enough?” doesn’t really matter late in the game. You’ve done what you’ve done. Adaptation to new stress, new training stimulus takes weeks. It’s the repeated exposure to that stimulus throughout training that matters. Thus, a single extra workout will not add much, but that extra workout could lead to illness, injury, or fatigue on race day. If you think you’ve prepared well, trust your training. If you think you’ve fallen short, modify your goals. It’s too late to fix it.
Don’t add anything new to your training. New means harder and longer as well as different. I like to count back 6-8 weeks from my target race. That’s when I want to be at my peak training level, my longest run and/or hardest speed/hill session. That doesn’t mean I start my taper then. I’ll repeat those hard sessions the last few weeks leading into my taper, but won’t increase them.
Minimize weights and resistance training. The goal of tapering is to have fresh muscles at the start. You’ve done the work. Let your body absorb it.
Tapering is as much art as science. It’s as individual to the person as it is the event. Rather than giving you a specific recipe, here are some guidelines to follow.
- Maintain the same schedule if you can. Your body becomes used to rhythms. If you’ve been running 5 days/week, keep running those same 5 days.
- Cut back on volume. In general, race week should be < 50% of total volume. If you’re doing a 3-week taper off of 60 miles/week, the final three weeks might be 45, 35, 25. Do so by shortening your runs rather than skipping one. If not sure, err on the side of less rather than more.
- Maintain the intensity with caveats. Keep doing your speedwork but shorten the number or repetitions. In general, you don’t need to do them any faster than race pace/effort during taper. If you’re training for a marathon and been doing your speed sessions faster than marathon race pace (MRP), slow them down to MRP. If you’re training for an ultra, I would continue to do striders (You’re not? You should); ~30 seconds with a focus on leg turnover not speed, short, quick strides. Striders are good during the taper for all distance.
- The week of, only do easy/recovery runs with some striders and perhaps a short tempo at race pace/effort; e.g., a couple of miles at marathon race pace for a marathon, 5 minutes or so at 5k pace for a 5k.
How long should you taper?
- 5k – 10k: 1 week.
- ½-Marathon: 2 weeks.
- Marathon: 3 weeks.
- 50 – 100mi: 3-4 weeks.
These are guidelines, not hard and fast rules. Listen to your body. In general, err on the side of too little than too much. Any fitness loss from tapering will be nominal and more than offset by having a rested body. It’s better to go into a big race a bit undertrained than 1% overtrained, with well rested legs rather than a depleted body.
Knowing the physiology doesn’t necessarily ease the anxiety. Your taper needs to address the mind as well as the body. If you’re anxious and feel the need to do more, it’s OK to add an extra short/easy run or a set of striders. Something short and fast, like striders, can be good at alleviating nerves. Just remember to keep it short and not too hard. If you/your legs feel like they want to run more and fast, that’s good. Do just enough to ease the mind so that you’ll have that feeling at the start line.
Food: As you cut back on training, you might want to cut back on eating, but only a bit. You don’t want to gain weight, but you also don’t want to go hungry. For those who count calories, the calories you burn are not just what you use in training, but also in recovery and basic daily functioning. Your metabolism should already be fairly high from training into the taper. The best way to cut back during tapering is to cut out/back on junk food and snacks, and perhaps slightly smaller portions at meals. Keep the more nutritious foods and less of the empty calories. Indulge after.
Sleep is important in training in general as well as in tapering. Sleep is where your body does most of its repairing and strengthening. Sleep as well as you can to let your body get ready to race. Sleeping well the night before can be challenging for many. If you sleep well in the days prior, you don’t have to worry as much about the night before.
Should you race prior to your “A” race? That depends. A shorter, training “B” race can be a good test of your training and good way to practice for the “A” race. You can try your shoes, nutrition, hydration, pacing, night before, breakfast day of, etc.
If you want to do a “B” race, you can do a mini-taper and recovery. Back off for a few days, perhaps a week leading into the race. Use that week as a down week; most good training plans will include a down/recovery week every few weeks. Use the race as a hard workout, not necessarily all out. Then, take a few easy days after the race. Elites might be able to race a hard ½-marathon 3-6 weeks before a marathon. That doesn’t mean the rest of us can. Note that Kipchoge didn’t race prior to his record breaking Berlin marathon (I think his last race was in March).
Tapering is my second favorite part of training. Training can be wearing both physically and psychologically. I see tapering as a reward for a long stretch of training. It’s a time to rest my body and relax my mind. I realize not everyone thinks like I do. Know that there’s very little you can do to help at this point but a lot you can do to put all that effort to waste. All I can say is trust in your training, trust in yourself. Take all that work you’ve done and make sure it’s ready to use on race day.
Train smart. Have fun. Smile. See you on the trails (and roads).
Runuphill Racing 