RunningAHEAD - Topic: Question: How does one taper?

Newf

posted: 5/14/2008 at 10:47 AM

I know there are different opinions on the amount or running for tapering but should you focus on specific runs I.e. Only do easy, or should/could you do a mix of easy, tempo and hill?

Run To Win

#2867

posted: 5/14/2008 at 11:05 AM

The purpose of a taper is to allow your body to repair damage and to stock up on water and glycogen stores leading up to a race. Most of your runs will be easy, but if you are tapering for more than a few days then you will want some short at speed work mixed in as well.

Run to Win
25 Marathons, 17 Ultras, 16 States (Full List)

Berner

posted: 5/14/2008 at 12:55 PM

The best advice I've seen is that during your taper you should decrease your volume of running, but not your intensity. For example: if you are accustomed to running a weekly tempo workout with 5 miles at pace, during your taper you might still do a weekly tempo workout, but you would scale it back to 3 miles at pace.

How To Run a Marathon: Step 1 - start running. There is no Step 2.

Mr R

posted: 5/14/2008 at 3:23 PM

It depends on your event. I taper less for 8-10k than for marathons, because I always feel sluggish if I drop my mileage too much. With marathons, the need to have full glycogen stores is paramount, so I drop the miles more. For 1.5-5k, I actually increase the intensity, but I also increase the rest and drastically increase the volume. This is because the neuromuscular element is so important in faster races. You can have top notch fitness, but if you don't practice running fast, you'll feel out of control. After running some 400s and mile pace, with a long recovery, suddenly 5k pace just feels easy.

What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles, Miles of Trials. How could they be expected to understand that? -John Parker

Newf

posted: 5/18/2008 at 1:02 PM

Thanks for your input helped me reach my goal for this event.

Question: How does one taper? (Read 660 times)