Does anyone "taper" before their really long runs?... (Read 724 times)

During my long runs outside of 16-18 miles, I'm really gassed for the last few miles off, and race - that worked very well.... I just wondered what "strategy" has helped you to do your long runs that I could try? Thanks for any ideas! Bill

When you take days off you lose blood volume that has been gained through training. Try doing short/medium length slow runs on the 2 days prior to your long one and see if it doesn't help. You should start to notice a difference by about the 3rd one, if not sooner. Running more frequently tends to make us stronger and enhance our ability to recover if we work up to it gradually and keep paces sensible. Consecutive days off should be avoided, imo. The "strategy" that has worked for me has been to run almost everyday and run easily between harder efforts. Rather than a "hard, easy" approach, mine is more like "hard, easy, easy, hard, easy, easy, etc." Running on softer surfaces such as grass on my easy days also seems to help.

If you have to take 2 days off before a long run or more than a day after than you are running it either to long or to hard. Your long runs seem way out of proportion to the rest of your mileage.

Excellent comment. As is jsobo119's. The weekly long run should not require a taper, unless there is something "special" about it....abnormally longer than usual, includes a "quality" element such as a tempo element or two (Daniels schedules this in some of his programs), extended MP segment, etc. If you take two days off before a long run and still struggle to finish it, then you are reaching too far. You would be better served by backing off on the long run distance and adding mileage elsewhere in your schedule to strengthen and broaden your base before peaking long run distance. An extra easy run or two during the week and/or a midweek medium long run of about 2/3-3/4 the distance of the previous long run are good ways to do that. The medium long run is a very useful (and often overlooked) training element. Personally, although I did not taper, per se, my training was primarily based on running six days/week with the off day the day before the weekly long run: Mon - Hard run (easy run if I had raced the previous day). Tues - Easy/GA run and weight training. Wed - Medium long run Thur - Hard run and weight training Fri - Off Sat - Long run and weight training Sun - Easy/GA run or short race (usually 5-10k) Note: "Hard run" = VO2max, LT or hill repeat workout. I did not deviate from the above routine to "taper" for long runs as they reached a peak of 22-24 miles.