Tapering For Races

Tapering is the term used for reducing your mileage or effort level in the run up to an event. Everybody has there own version of a taper, which may differ for different events. The point of a taper is to make you feel fresh on the day of your event, however some people do have a problem easing back, possibly believing that they will lose fitness if they do less in the days before a race. The truth of the matter is that you will lose very little, if any, fitness with a complete week’s rest so your event is more likely to be affected by overtraining than under training, in the final week. Of course if you race weekly your overall fitness will probably suffer if you do a full taper before each one so it is important to distinguish which events are important and either don’t taper for the less important ones or reduce the taper. One must remember that some races are goal driven and others are merely a means to an end.

As an athlete with nearly 24 years experience behind me and one who’s always looking for something, legal, that might move me up the rankings, you can imagine I’ve tried various things for my own taper. I’m still not sure which is best because I’ve been successful with all of them and not significantly more successful with one more than the other. So my ‘important message’ from this blog is find what suits you, to ensure that you are feeling good at the time of your important races, don’t worry too much about the minor races. Be prepared to change the taper for different races and most importantly; should circumstances prevent you from carrying out your planned taper, don’t panic, you can do more damage by doing too much rather than too little.

But what are these tapers, I hear you ask. Well here’s a few examples of what I and people I know have used.

I do know some people who run every day of the year, Ron Hill being a famous example of that. My old mate and former training partner Charlie Dickinson would often go weeks without a rest day, though you could guarantee his run the day before a race would be easier. I have run every day of the week on occasions. Usually it’s down to circumstances, such as this week where I was heading to Edinburgh for the weekend so did a Friday morning run, even though I was planning to run the Edinburgh parkrun on Saturday. I knew the weather forecast wasn’t good and therefore there would be a chance I would not be able to run at the weekend, plus the parkrun was more a social visit than a race.

Through the majority of my life as a runner I have taken the day off the day before a race. I suppose that’s not strictly true because if I had a midweek race I would always run on the previous day and often on the lunchtime of the race. However as most races were weekend races I would generally take Friday off, though I would transfer this to Saturday if it was a Sunday race. This worked well for me as I got to rest the day before a race but even if I wasn’t racing I got a day of rest. Through out my, normal, working life it actually always felt like I was working a 4 day week. Monday to Thursday I trained twice a day and worked a full day’s work. Friday I would just work and Saturday and Sunday I would just train. So although I was doing something that can be adjudged to be hard work on 7 days, I had a reduced workload on 3 of those days, hence a 3 day weekend.

At one stage I started to take Thursday off and run Friday, race on Saturday. I even went through a phase where I would do a short run on the Saturday morning, before a race in the afternoon. They both worked, but I don’t do them anymore. I went through a phase whereby I just ran steady runs, no quality, the week before a race. I’ve taken two days off, completely, before a race. I know of people who like to do a few reps the day before a race, and I’ve tried that too.

When I ran my marathon my pre-race training week looked like this:

Monday – 46 minute run (approx 6 miles)

Tuesday – 3 x 1600m at marathon pace (actual times 5:38 / 5:37 / 5:39)

Wednesday – 30 minute run (approx 4.5 miles)

Thursday – 20 minute run (approx 3 miles)

Friday – rest

Saturday – rest

Sunday – London Marathon – 2:34.

These days I’ve found something that works for most races, I have a different taper for championship races. I don’t taper for parkruns. My current, general taper is.

Monday - Full quality run session plus core session

Tuesday – 6-8 miles steady, plus kettlebells

Wednesday – Reduced quality session, i.e. 16 x 1 min at 85% effort, plus core session

Thursday – 6 miles plus upper body weights (I don’t do legs this close to a race)

Friday – core session

Saturday – Race

This doesn’t take into account any client work I may be doing, so I sometimes have to factor that in and adjust accordingly (or if it’s a major championship that I want to win I will say no to clients towards the end of the week, unless it fits in nicely with what I was planning on doing myself). That probably means little without knowing what I do on non taper weeks, my 2^nd quality session would be longer, my steady runs would be longer and I would include another cardio burst within my gym sessions, I would also include legs in my Thursday gym.

So this week Carole and I ventured up to Edinburgh, my favourite city in the UK. We had a great time and, yes, the weather did affect my running. Though I do have one word of complaint, TRAMS! What on earth is going on? Somebody had the idea of building a tramway where there is already a successful bus service. Ok so that provides an element of competition, but the tram works and all the disruption that goes with it started before I left Edinburgh, over 3 years ago, and it’s still going on. Worst, I haven’t got a clue how much longer it will be going on. It’s made a real mess of the city centre, and it’s inconvenienced a lot of people. No trams in Northwich, though we do have an interesting one way system!

 

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk