For anyone who races, the taper is an essential part of the training program. A taper is the days and sometimes weeks before a race when you decrease your training to increase your strength and freshness on race day. This is the season to ease back and harvest the fruits of your labor. Don’t miscalculate. In particular, don’t overtrain during your taper. When you do you risk wasting your weeks and months of focused training.
When you begin to train harder, two things happen simultaneously. First, your potential for improved performance rises. Training is an investment in your future. However, in real time, your fatigue also increases, so the two tend to cancel each other out. In other words, you can’t race your best when you are also training to the max.
Coaches and athletes have long understood this, of course. So they had to come up with a solution. Before their most important races, top athletes taper (reduce) their training. This allows them to erase the fatigue and to peak for a best-possible performance.
Peaking is so crucial to athletic success that it has been extensively studied. Fortunately, most of the studies have reached the same or very similar conclusions. The path to primo peaking is clear: Reduce your total training, but maintain (or even slightly increase) the speed of several workouts per week. Run less, run faster, and race your best on the chosen day.
A meta-analysis of twenty-seven tapering studies published in Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise reached the following conclusion: “The optimal strategy is a two-week taper” with training volume reduced by 41 to 60 percent, “while training frequency and intensity remain the same.” In other words, you should continue running the same number of days per week, but shorten each workout by up to 50 percent. Maintain the pace of your (shortened) speed runs.
You might think tapering would be great fun, with its decreased training load. However, most runners underestimate the emotional challenge. Don’t be surprised if your knees begin creaking, your stomach sours, and you can’t stop thinking that your training has been all wrong.
If disaster seems imminent, that’s a good sign. It’s perfectly normal. Don’t panic. “Race-day magic” will make everything turn out fine on your big day.
Taper one week for 5Ks and 10Ks: Most races of 5K or 10K require only a one-week taper. If the race is on Saturday or Sunday, just follow your normal days of running, but keep them short. If you typically run 4 miles at a time, run only 2 or 3 miles. During these short runs, do several surges at your goal race pace. You want your body to remember this pace and to “dial in” on it.
Taper two weeks for half marathons: This is the taper to follow if you are getting ready for a half marathon. Two weeks before the half, run 10 to 12 miles at a comfortable pace. The week before, run 6 to 8 miles. Maintain the same frequency of runs during the week (three a week, four a week, et cetera) but run only 67 percent of your normal distance during the two-weeks-to-go period, and only 50 percent in the final week. As with other tapers, be sure to do some short speed sessions at your goal pace.
Taper three weeks for marathons: Most recreational marathoners use a three-week taper. They need it, because they have increased their training quite dramatically in the previous three, four, or more months of dedicated marathon training.
The marathon also demands a longer taper because the distance is great enough to require full glycogen storage, muscle freshness, proper hydration, and complete mental focus. You’ve got to train to the max for a great marathon, but then you also have to taper to the max.
Three weeks before the marathon, you can complete a long run of 12 to 16 miles at a steady, comfortable pace. Two weeks before, reduce your long-run distance to 8 to 12. One week before, run 6 to 10 miles for your long run. Continue with your other, shorter weekly runs, but decrease the distance of each. You might cut them from 8 to 6 to 4 miles apiece.
At least once a week, do several miles at your normal tempo-run pace, and maybe finish with three or four strides for relaxed, faster running. The faster runs will lift your knees and your spirits. You’ll need both on marathon day.