With Coach Alexa, Online Running Coach for We Run
The Mental Side of Tapering for Your Spring Marathon
A lot of people I’m working with at the moment are either in, or approaching, taper mode for their spring marathons.
I know myself and Coach Kelvin have covered different aspects of the physical taper – how you drop back your training at the right time so you’re in top physical condition, fully adapted and recovered from your training when you go into a race.
But I thought today I’d talk about the mental aspect of a taper.
There was a fantastic study done a few years back that showed tapering mentally was as beneficial to your race performance as tapering physically. And if you do both together, you get even more benefits than doing one or the other on its own.
What Does Mental Tapering Involve?
So what does a mental taper look like?
It’s a little bit easier said than done in real life, I have to say. This was done in a sort of controlled study environment, but it effectively means trying to avoid stressful situations, trying to avoid situations where you’re having to really think hard and problem solve, react quickly to things.
It means upping the amount of relaxed downtime that you have – upping the amount of physically inactive, mentally calming rest time. Chilled-out activities. Upping the amount of sleep you get also helps.
Why Mental Tapering Helps on Race Day
Why does this help?
For longer races – half marathons, marathons, and beyond – as you’ll know if you’ve done the training, there is obviously a big physical component. But there is quite an impressive mental component too.
If your brain’s in the game, the body can actually be feeling quite tired or not so great. But if the brain is feeling good, it’s easier to keep going.
Having your brain tapered and relaxed enables it to be more positive, more energised going into that race. It’s less likely to get negative with you, less likely to start telling you stories, asking you to slow down, persuading you to walk or stop or whatever.
It’s more likely to be able to stay positive, to be supportive toward yourself, to encourage you to keep going. And particularly toward the end of longer races, that can be really, really useful.
It can make the whole experience feel a lot more fun and enjoyable – which is brilliant – but it can also have a positive effect on performance.
The Mental Edge: Relaxation and Performance
When your brain is able to stay in the game, keep you motivated, and stay in a positive space toward the end of a race, you’ll be able to maintain pace, maybe push on with pace. You’ll be able to unlock more of your physical potential if your brain is in a good space.
And the mental taper is one way that you can really help prepare for that.
That might mean planning relaxing activities. It might mean cutting back on your social life so you don’t have too many evenings out and full-on situations. It might be, if possible, taking a couple of days off or afternoons off work.
If it’s within your control, it might be lowering the stress or commitment levels that you have in life. Taking a little more time for yourself and prioritising relaxing activities – things that help you feel calm.
Make Space for Mental Recovery
So maybe have a little bit of a think about what that means for you and how you can fit it into your taper.
Because it will help your recovery, it will help your adaptation – but it will very much help your performance on race day, and most importantly, how much you enjoy the race.
Hope that’s useful. Happy running.
