Hi folks, it’s Kelvin here. We Run Coach for Leeds and the surrounding areas, as well as online coaching.
In this video, I’m going to share some thoughts on tapering.
Let’s first talk about what tapering is and what it does. Then I’m also going to share some thoughts on how to practise your taper.
What Is Tapering?
Whilst we’re training, we’re accumulating fitness, but we’re also accumulating fatigue.
It is possible to be as fit as you’ve ever been, but still not perform at your best because you’re unable to express that fitness due to the amount of fatigue you’re carrying from training.
The idea of the taper is that we want to maintain as much fitness as possible whilst shedding as much fatigue as possible. If this is done appropriately, it will give us, on average, about a 3% gain on race day, which is certainly not insignificant.
How Long Should You Taper?
Depending on the event distance, you might taper for:
- About seven days for a 10K.
- About 10 to 12 days for a half marathon.
- Around two weeks for a marathon or an ultra.
The idea is that, during these time frames, we decrease training load whilst maintaining fitness. We’re not trying to build more fitness. The focus is on shedding fatigue.
Why You Should Practise Your Taper
With the runners I work with, and for myself, I like to practise the taper between two and three times during training.
For maybe three key workouts, I’ll have a relatively easy week, followed by a taper week just like an event week, with exactly the same tempo that I’m going to do on race day. Then I’ll roll into a particularly hard effort.
This gives me the chance to experiment with things and see how I feel. When it comes to race week, or a couple of weeks before the race, I’ve already got some familiarity with how a taper feels.
We don’t always feel amazing during a taper. The body does slightly strange things when it’s used to heavier training blocks and carrying fatigue. Then, all of a sudden, it has an element of freshness. There may also be some race-day nerves coming into the equation.
Being familiar with that can give you confidence on race day.
Final Thoughts
I’m going to do another video covering a little more about what to do during a taper and how that varies for different events, from 5K up to ultramarathon. That covers most of the events that runners take part in.
If you’ve got any questions, or there’s anything you’d like me to include in that video, please let me know in the comments below.
For now, happy running.
