About Taper

Taper has finally arrived. Not surprisingly I have that unmistakable feeling of being unprepared, the same I get at the start of every taper. I really doesn’t matter how long I have been training for the race or how much it drags during certain times, it’s always the same, get to taper and want more time. But here we are nonetheless.

It has been a long time coming. In fact this has been the longest I have gone in a marathon preparation. Or the shortest, depending on how we look at it. If I only look at increased volume it has only been 11 weeks. However, when I start looking into the various phases of training I have completed to get there, such as base mileage, strength and speed and specific marathon training, the number is 44 weeks. From January 15th to November 18th.

For the year so far I have completed 4,684km or 2,910 miles. And we’re not even in December yet. That is clearly a comprehensive approach to marathon running.

The last 11 weeks have not gone swimmingly well. Let me rephrase that. In this last 11 week phase I have come up about 115km (70 miles) short of what I had planned. Mostly due to spending 4 days in bed with 0 mileage and another week with self-imposed low mileage as I regained some strength.

115km compared to the 4,684km I have done seems like a joke but they came at a bad time. With about 6 weeks before race day and almost stopping my final jump in fitness.

But I will not complain about that. Quite the opposite. It has been the year I have run most miles ever, I have not been injured or had any muscular problems. I have managed to PB in 5k and 10k distances (which I never prepare properly) and I will be, not there yet, at the start line of my target race.

And taper has arrived. Probably my second least favorite phase of training not far behind getting back into running after some time off. I find taper a real torture, a time where the smallest thing can throw all your efforts down the drain. It’s very easy not to get taper right and get to race day either over trained, under trained or worst even, pick up a bad cold and really damage your race day performance.

I’ve always felt taper is probably one of the most misunderstood stages of marathon preparation. Of any race actually. From talking to fellow runners it seems to me people have a vague comprehension of what needs to happen during that period but there is very little clarity around how long or even what that means in terms of number of runs, intensities, etc. Of course there’s lots of literature, a lot of articles and twitter goes mental with opinions and recommendations. Even outrage.

Taper, essentially, needs to be understood as a period of recovery. The final recovery before the final effort. That recovery can take many shapes and forms, always depending on what we’ve accustomed our body to and the race we are preparing for. The harder the race, one would expect, the harder the preparation (race specific preparation) which means a longer taper.

In marathon training runners are quite lucky as most training regimes, processes and methods have existed for quite some time and have been proven and tested. We don’t have the need to reinvent the wheel or experiment with wacky suggestions we’ve heard from that guy on Strava. It is, generally speaking, a smart move to follow any of the accepted guidelines for tapering. We normally see marathon taper in books and training programs as a 2–3 weeks period. That is 14–21 days.

What should then happen at that point? We get in to the last 3 weeks and we stop running? We are immediately no longer fatigued? We’re given a magic pill and we’re ready to race the next day? No. The reason marathon taper is so long is because we need to take our time in slowly decreasing the stress we’ve been putting our body under. Very slowly, almost unnoticeable from one day to the next. Until we are bouncy and race ready.

If we imagine marathon training as putting stones in your rucksack over 15 weeks, with the load of the stones representing the stress we create every training run, before we can race we need to empty the rucksack completely. That, however, needs to be done over a 2–3 week period. If we empty the bag right away we may find ourselves peaking 10 days early and if we get to race day with still some stones in the bag it is likely we will not race that well on the day.

Every day we need to take a stone from the rucksack until 1–2 days before D day when we have finally emptied the bag completely.

So we know that during taper we reduce volume but what about intensity? What are the right workouts to do?

I’m not sure there is a single way to do this properly. The general guidelines are to reduce volume but maintain number of runs and intensity of those runs. That means if we’re used to a fartleck early in the week and a track workout later in the week, we continue with those. Only we shorten the length of the session.

And I say there is no single way because it’s like a game of jenga. We know what we need to do to win the game but which piece we take away is up to us based on what we see and what’s left. So sometimes we may want to replace an entire workout for an easy run with some strides and sometimes we may benefit from something a little pacier but not as long.

The one rule I would follow, however, is not to start throwing in intensities or workouts we have not done up until that point. If we’ve spent the entire marathon preparation without 800s at 3k pace, it would be recommendable not to start now. Mainly because this would put a muscular stress on our legs and body we have not prepared for so the risk of injury is increased unnecessarily.

Now, our body has been stressed for weeks and because we were marathon training it has not had the time to recover properly. Our fitness rucksack, over the last 15 weeks, has constantly contained some sort of load. Which means that as soon as we start taking extra rest the body sees an opportunity to start mending itself. And that is not a nice feeling. Suddenly everything aches and all the niggles come out.

Also, as a result of the body starting to repair itself we are heavy legged, lethargic and feel just awful. It’s normal. It’s during those sluggish runs we start having some negative thoughts about being sufficiently prepared. We just need to trust the process and don’t succumb to the temptation of doing more just because we feel that way. It will all come together.

I remember about 5 years ago, when I would panic every taper, I was training for a half marathon. Being a half marathon I tapered for about 7–10 days.

It got to Thursday (4 days before race day) and with the view to activate my legs a bit I decided to run 2x2000 at half marathon pace. I felt so sluggish and achy that I had to stop after the first rep.

I jogged the rest of the way home feeling awful. If I couldn’t run 2 miles at race pace I had no chance with a half marathon 3 days later. I PB’d by about 3 minutes.

That experience really taught me to trust the process. It’s not about how you feel 10 days or even 3 days before the race, it’s about how you are race morning.

Another lovely taper issue comes in the shape of viral processes. As a result of not running as much our defences are lowered. That is when our immune system can take a hit and when we are at our most vulnerable to colds and general viruses.

In essence, we turn into pathological hypochondriacs. We react to the smallest signs. A child sneezes within a mile radius and I’m convinced I’ve caught the Ebola virus. During taper time I avoid things like public transport or shaking hands. I minimise human interaction and become obsessed about washing my hands.

Taper is also a time for paying extra care to what we eat and drink. We’ve gone from high performing machines to taking more rest days. Our metabolism is used to high quantities of fuel so it is very easy to keep eating the same amounts, completely lose the plot and actually put on too much weight.

As we run less and we rest more we start feeling stronger. But now we don’t have the running outlet so we find ourselves more active during the day and less tired at night.

This can impact our sleep patterns. For this I normally remove caffeine from my diet the week of the marathon. It helps me sleep better at night. The first 2–3 days, however, I get more headaches as the body starts feeling the caffeine withdrawal.

So, in summary, I find nothing I like during taper. Actually I lie. I very much love the mental game. Starting to think about race strategy, about pacing, about the motivational aspects and about the necessary focus to keep that motivation fresh.

Creating that belief and that hunger which needs to be combined with smart calculations and controlled emotions. Perhaps that’s for some other day.