Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Tale of the Taper
During my first post-Ome run yesterday, which delivered excruciating pain to my quads with every step, I started contemplating The Taper. I came up with more questions than answers. Obviously, the short answer is that it's a gradual reduction in training distance and intensity to allow your muscles to rest and recover for the intense punishment of a marathon. However, what's most effective way to taper? Should you eliminate all runs, of say, more than 10K? Is it OK to do a 2o or 25k run at an easy pace during your taper? How about tempo runs and intervals? How hard should you tax your body? Can you taper too much? I'm always afraid of losing my intensity during a taper. What do the experts think?
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9 comments:
Sorry Tom, I don't know what any experts think. Actually, there was an article in Running Times recently that summarized progress in what we have learned about marathon training over the past 30 years.
One of the things that caught my eye was that the most recent thinking on the taper is to not reduce the mileage so much, but reduce the intensity.
I find the taper really vexing, but for what its worth, here is my approach. I reluctantly accept that anything I do less than 2 weeks out from the race is unlikely to feed through to a fitter, stronger me. But at the same time, I need the confidence that comes from running, and hey, I just like running, so I am not going to do anything too drastic. But in the second last week, this one, I think it is important to add in a complete rest day or two and to cut back the distance of your regular runs. For example, I have been running 16 to 18 km on Tuesdays, so this week I ran only 14. I have been running 20 to 22 on Wednesdays, so today I will run no more than 16. Between now and Sunday I might take another rest day and run twice for about 12 or 14 km at most at a relatively comfortable pace. If I do any higher intensity, it will just be in short stretches, as in a fartlek or build-up finish. The idea is to not finish any run exhausted. And thus, I will run 20 km or so on Sunday, but again, not at a hard pace, or not much of it at a hard pace.
Next week I will cut the distances right back and throw in short bursts of a couple of km here and there at race pace. From the Thursday I will be doing very little and just concentrating on resting and carbo loading. I'll probably run Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at moderate warming up paces, some marathon pace renshu, and maybe a little bit of faster stuff at the finish.
It is a timely topic.
I am going through an unusual easy taper since the hard Shinjuku Half threw me out of my plan completely. I've done only 3 runs totalling lousy 30k since then and don't feel like doing much more at the moment. I was so hyped but now my enthusiam is vanishing day by day - and the oddest thing is I don't even seem to care. A bit weird but let's see how it pans out on race day. My ambitions are as low as they can get and the only thing I am looking forward to is getting a big burger at Tsubame Grill tonight.
Looking at this objectively, I think I've overdone things before the taper which could potentially unsettle my Tokyo goals. In the end taper does not mean complete rest and that's what my body demands. Maybe I have to turn the Tokyo Marathon into a sightseeing fun run... Ingo
Thanks for your reply, Steve. I was falling somewhere between you and Ingo, but now I'm going to include some longer runs of 20K at least. I'd be interested in hearing the ideal distance for a pre-marathon tempo run. My usual tempo runs are only 6K.
If you think you have done enough mileage in January, and I guess you did, then you should focus on removing fatigue, rather than reinforcing your fitness.
When you succeed removing fatigue, you will have a wonderful feeling at the race day. You will be surprized how light your body is, I always enjoy this feeling at the first 10k of a marahon.
What I do is marathon pace repetition, thanks to Brett who told me about this, it really work well on me. You run 1km with your target marathon race pace, and 200m jog to recover and you repeat this set, say 5 times, 4 times, 3 times, then 2 times before the race day.
It's very easy workout, but not too easy like just jogging, and therefore you will gain confidence about your race pace, also good to make your body learn the pace. Adding some short tempo isn't bad idea.
What the experts say:
Owen Anderson, Running Research News:
Pre-marathon taper should be four weeks. Compared to usual mileage, the amount should be 75%, 50%, 30%, 15%. During the first three weeks, sustain normal high quality training (intervals, tempo runs) but cut back the long runs. During the final week, foucs on interval training divided between 5k race pace and marathon pace intervals, gradually reducing the humber of intervals each day.
Not tapering enough is much worse than tapering too much!
Pete Pfitzinger:
Substantially cut back your mileage, but maintain training intensity. Reduce the distance of your runs substantially, but cut back only moderately on number of runs per week. Do a 3-week taper. 3rd week before: 60%, 2nd week before: 40%, week before: 20%.
Bob
Bob,
"Not tapering enough is much worse than tapering too much!"
Is "not tapering" too little running or too much running? My understanding is you could overdo things with too much running, correct? Just to be sure.
I don't want to panick now because I am doing too little at the moment. I am feeling burnt out, tired, heavy, unmotivated and lethargic...
Things that make me happy are good food, chocolate and beer.
I had to force myself yesterday to go out for a 10k run and I just didn't enjoy it - regardless of my 5min/k sleepy pace.
Looks like I peaked already 2 weeks ago and now I find myself at the bottom of a deep valley.
Ingo
Ingo, over the next week, try to get out for some shorter runs at your intended marathon pace. Practice the pace. Don't fatigue yourself, but get out and see what it is going to feel like. It should help you physically sharpen up again.
And then slap yourself upside the head a few times to snap out of the mental trough. You don't do all that training just to go into your shell at the last moment. It is right to taper hard (i.e. run a lot less), but you have to stay switched on in other ways like thinking about nutrition, race strategy, gear, logisitics, visualization, contingency planning...come on man, get with it!! ;-)
It's good to get some upbeat words from the Master! Man, this tapering hard model reminds me of the relationship between interest rates and bond prices... a bull bond market means yields are going down -> tapering hard = run a lot less. I never understood the bond market...
I took your advice and just came back from an 11k lunch run. I averaged 4:24min/k at 75-77% HRMax and it felt very easy (pretty warm out there today). Not sure what was wrong yesterday. But overall there's still a lot fatigue left in my body.
Settling into the pace was very easy because I did most of my mileage around this pace anyway.
Will execute your 2nd advice now and start slapping myself ;-)
Ingo,
I was where you are now about a month ago. In fact it was just before the 30k that we ran together. Just hang in there and keep plugging. I'm sure you'll come back around. Sounds like you had a better run today. I like the short, marathon paced stuff too. Keeps you sharp for the marathon.
AZ
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