Instead of worrying about race day every night for the next fortnight, take some advice from Fast Running and embrace the taper. A good taper can be the difference between hitting your potential and hitting the wall in those last few miles so how do we make sure to hit race day running?

There is some really good science on the subject, especially for marathons, so no need to just throw a wild guess at the topic. If you are one of the “tapering doesn’t work for me”crowd (and I have certainly put myself in there at times) then I really think it’s just down to not getting the taper right.

This meta analysis by Bosquet et al (2007) on Effects of Tapering on Performance: A Meta-Analysis  is a brilliant summary of a lot of the work that had been done in endurance sports and provides an overview for running, cycling and swimming. The summary  for running? It was “8-14 days with a 21-40% decrease in volume without decrease in frequency or intensity”. There is a beautiful table in the paper for those who like numbers.

Too little is better than too much.

The taper is when you ease off from all the hard work done and refresh the body before race day. By gradually reducing mileage and time on feet before the big day then you allow all the adaptations from marathon training to really sink in and excel on the big day.

This is not the time to squeeze in extra reps, catch up on your long runs or push your easy runs that much quicker. In the final two to three weeks you are more likely to do harm than good by over training and it’s best to arrive slightly undercooked, rather than overcooked. It’s the opposite for cooking chicken, especially in race week.

The same can be said for intensity. The idea of maintaining intensity we mention above doesn’t mean “get faster because you feel fresher”. It is all too tempting to up the speed closer to the race because you feel good but maintain intensity and don’t put too many new stresses on the body, just keep sharp the adaptations you have already made.

Sleep

If you struggle to get a good night’s sleep the night before the race then don’t worry. You’re not the only one. If we all operate on the pretence that the night before is a bit of a write off, then banking sleep the week before the race will really come in handy. The penultimate night and the whole week before is a great chance to get your body extra rest and even just going to bed 30 minutes early each day of race week could mean an extra three & a half hours of recovery before you toe the line.

On race night make sure you set a good alarm, have your logistics and schedule nailed for the day after and have a clock or watch by your bed. I often find I’ll wake up and panic I’ve missed the start so having a watch nearby means I can quickly check, find it’s only 11:32pm and quickly get back to the land of nod.

Visualise that finish line

You may be running less and taking it a bit easy in race week so that your body isn’t over stressed but use this time to work your mind a little bit. The process of visualisation is proven to improve results when it comes to the showdown with the clock. See yourself finishing strongly over those final few miles, crossing the finish line with that giant clock showing the PB you so desire. 

You can visualise during your easy runs, when your head hits the pillow at night or when your boss is shouting at you for being on Facebook at work, changing your profile picture to your race number. Train the mind and experience a pinch of the emotions you will feel on the day, just so it’s not an overwhelming experience and you burst into tears when you achieve beyond your wildest target.

Finally just remember to enjoy race week, race day and the smug feeling of excellence after you finish. This is the fun part and why you signed up. Beware the post race blues though, the best solution for that is to continue the journey with another race signup. This is just the beginning.

Reference

Bosquet, L., Montpetit, J., Arvisais, D. and Mujika, I., 2007. Effects of tapering on performance: a meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39(8), pp.1358-1365.

Robbie is an athlete and coach sponsored by Odlo, Profeet Sports Laband Precision Hydration. If you want to follow his training you can also see it here on Strava or the highs and lows of Twitter and Instagram.

Are you a fan of Fast Running? Then please support us and become a patreon. For as little as the price of a monthly magazine you can support Fast Running – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

The post Simple advice to make that marathon taper run smoothly appeared first on Fast Running.

It is also the period when a lot of athletes do more damage to their chance of a PB than in the combined 12 months beforehand, due to a mixture of cramming training, ignoring the importance of rest or just panicking and not really thinking about the taper. Taperitis is rife.


So what is a perfect taper?

Much like any aspect of training for races from the track to the mountains, a taper is a very much individual matter, with a few underlying key principles which we shall look into shortly, but basically, you cannot just look at what Mo Farah or Sifan Hassan do and replicate in its entirety.

The three key components that generally construct a taper are changes in volume, intensity and frequency of training. To add a fourth, volume/quality of rest, is simply looking at a taper from a different direction.

The majority of runners could probably name someone who doesn’t believe in tapers, either someone at the club, a top runner on Instagram or you’re doubting the science yourself. One thing that is conclusive across a range of studies is tapering is an effective method of preparing for a race.

An athlete who doesn’t believe a taper works, most likely hasn’t discovered the best way to taper themselves for a race yet and the range of tapering methods are huge. Some start 3 weeks out with a gradual reduction each week, while others just have a cliff edge reduction the week of the race for those concerned about losing fitness and hitting the startline underprepared.

Intensity

Iñigo Mujika, the author of ‘Tapering and Peaking for Optimal Performace’, said that “a thorough review of the available literature suggests that training volume and frequency can be reduced to a higher extent than training intensity if falling into detraining is to be avoided,” but this is always relative to the individual and the event forthcoming.

Specificity to the event at hand, be it a 5k or an ultra marathon, should be the foremost consideration when deciding how a taper will look because the intensity for a track runner is vastly different to that of a marathon or ultra runner. Whilst the track runner may focus on keeping speed high, neuro-pathways active and take advantage of fresher legs to add short, sharp efforts into the taper, marathon runners needn’t be as concerned by top end speed.

For a marathon runner, it may be more important to work at the effort they will aim for in their race, maybe even stepping up to a lactate threshold level of effort but making sure that any volume of effort is timed and portioned as to allow full recovery before race day.

Volume

Mujika also surmised that “slow progressive reductions appear to be more effective than sudden standardised reductions in improving the athlete’s performance level” and this really should apply to the optimum taper, rather than individuals personal experiences.

If the key factors are not given the right attention, such as your diet, hydration, or work and life stresses, then the optimum taper may not be the best option for you. If you’re a massive fan of doughnuts, but this is balanced by your high mileage, then the optimum 3-week taper gradually reducing volume, but still chucking five doughnuts down your neck each day, might not be the best option.

 The easiest thing to suggest is to get your diet in hand, but it’s not always as simple as that. It could be that work means you live out of hotels and service station lunches, or just need to get out running to reduce mental stress.

If we don’t take these factors into account when planning a taper then you would be remiss in your planning. Even today an athlete I work with has been in contact to discuss how a taper often leaves her with stiffer muscles, due to running each day being her answer to eight hours at a desk. To remove this during the taper, but sustain the necessary eight hours at the desk, isn’t the correct taper, despite what the science for full-time athletes may say.

Hence it can be said there is an argument to maintain the frequency of your running, whilst reducing the volume and adapting the intensity. If you run twice a day, every day, then to alter too much could have a detrimental effect. Simply reducing each run to a percentage of your normal running or reducing it to one run a day (thus ensuring a 50% taper straight away) would still be tapering. The workload is relative to the training beforehand.

Immune System

Often a taper comes after some of the heavier training loads building up to a goal race, and this can lead to immunosuppression and we see many getting taperitis or illness during the tapering phase, then blaming the taper for the onset of such illness or injury (Yes, the rest made you injured).

Taking this into account there are a few things you can do to help pre-empt this, including consulting with a sports physiotherapist and having an understanding of the relationship between immune health and performance.

Mental Side of things

Many runners struggle with confidence issues when reducing their training, but once again it is best to expect this and plan accordingly.

Look back at the hard work you have done, take confidence in this and trust in the process. If you are still doubting yourself, talk to those more experienced, your coach or fellow runners.

You can also use the time freed up from not running effectively by dedicating blocks of your day to other activities geared towards your target race, such as planning food and drink strategies, getting your kit ready and focusing a block to rest or mindfulness. All of this will add up and help ensure you are still increasing your chances of a great race day during your taper.

Conclusion

Experiment with your own taper, more so if you’re racing shorter distances and more often, but if you’re racing a marathon or ultra marathon then it’s worth erring on the side of rest and caution a little more, as the stress about to hit the body is a larger factor. Bruce Fordyce, the nine times winner of the 56 mile Comrades Ultra and sub 2:20 marathoner, would always take three days off entirely before any key races.

Ultimately you need to view the taper as an essential part of training, growth and your personal success. Your best performance includes a taper before the event, even if in the past you haven’t found the right taper for yourself. So research, talk to others and don’t be afraid to experiment to find what works for you.

About the author:
Robbie Britton is a running coach, professional ultra marathon runner and bronze medalist at the 2015 IAU 24-hour World Championships.

The post Tapering before a race: what you need to know appeared first on Fast Running.

Add in athletes with unpredictable stress reactions. Then add emotionally charged agents, parents, support staff who all have vested interests. Then add in logistics and environmental considerations of travel, holding camps and team hotels and federation demands. Media? Yep add in that too.

You get the picture. And we haven’t even got into training details. Speed and endurance needed to be fine-tuned and brought to optimum for that athlete. Along with stride length, stride frequency, strength, power, elasticity.

So you have got a whole bunch of moving parts that you need to bring together. It is like landing a fighter jet on a moving aircraft carrier. In a stormy ocean. In the middle of the night. While getting shot at by the enemy.

You get the idea. So here are my 7 secrets for creating the perfect taper and giving the athletes you coach a chance to become Championships Closers.

1. Focus on reasons to succeed, not create reasons to fail.

Ok you coach. So you are a perfectionist. And over competitive. And probably a little insecure.
All those personality peccadillos mean that as you begin to organise the taper into the major champs your brain will focus on the things you believe are missing.

You obsess and narrow in on the 20% of the race you aren’t happy with. And not the 80% of the race you know is good.

Look you have probably coached hard for 45 weeks. In that time, you will have built up general fitness, then specific fitness. You will have crafted race-specific skill sets. You will have increased physical capacities.

So why the hell are you letting your competitive anxieties draw you towards the reasons to fail, rather than reasons to win? Be confident in the portfolio of work you have built up consistently over 9 months.

Take away: Trust in your process. Get out on the track and polish up what you do have and don’t dwell on what you don’t have. This is not the time for panic workouts.

2. Use your taper to subtract not to add.

Tapering by definition means taking away. Sharpening. Narrowing. But instead of subtracting, many coaches add. Add more work. More information. More pressure. More effort.

A year-long training program is like a long-haul flight. The majority of energy is used to get the thing off the ground and up to flying height. The plane then works hard to get on and stay on the flight path. Then when it gets a certain distance out from its target it starts to coast. It starts to float towards its target. Too much energy at this stage and the target will be missed.

The final descent is what tapering into a champs should be like. It should, of course include technical and race specific work, but this work should be completed effortless.

The effortful work is done in the winter, refined and maintained during the racing season. 20 days out from the major championships lock in the date of the competition. Put on auto-pilot and cruise in towards that target.

Take away: In the taper, subtract rather than add.

3. Taper according to personality types

Henk Kraaijenhof describes a spectrum of athletes from warriors to worriers. These groups are defined by differences in their fight or flight response to stress, governed by hormonal and neurotransmitters factors.

So should we taper this vastly different groups the same? Probably not.

The worriers are the ones that 3 weeks out of competition are checking entry lists and predicting lane draws. They are downloading weather apps for long range forecasts. They are living in their heads, with their foot on the brain accelerator. Calculating. Speculating. Burning up adrenaline. The last thing you want to give these guys is more information to worry about. Your job here is to simplify and de-stimulate.

The warriors? These guys are competitive beasts. The only problem being they don’t really show up unless it is on the big stage. These are the guys that you are going to have to remind that there is World Championships on to get some good workouts out of them. They have probably made social plans so a gentle reminder of the date of the first round will help them. These guys have their foot on the brain brake. They will need stimulated. It might not do any harm to talk about how good their competitors look. It might not do any harm to have a bad workout to scare them. Your job is to create a little fear and get their competitive side going.

Take away: Know what type of stress responder you have in front of you. And taper your information, environment and communication accordingly.

4. Padlock the doors to the excuse factory

Winning Championships medals is hard. The guys that do that are hard physically. And even harder mentally. There are many that aren’t prepared to to face the long lonely road to championship success. And it needs to be lonely. And hard. And we have to create the situation where there are no ways out.

I liken it to placing the athlete in a room with the doors all closed. Outside of the room is an excuse factory. I think I might be injured. I feel sick. Athlete X has a better lane draw than me. Athlete Y is getting preferential treatment from the federation. Blah, blah, blah. You let those things into the room and the championships are over.

The guys who win medals find a way to keep the doors shut. They do not let any excuses into that room.
Here is the problem, some athletes will go trying all the doors and there will be a group of people who will quite happily confirm their worries and open the doors to the excuse factory wide open.

Take Away: Take a look at the people in the inner circle and decide if they are guys that will keep the excuse factory locked up or will open it up.

5. Avoid the temptation to need to have million dollar workouts

Here is a mistake I have made as a coach. Believing that it is important to have great workouts in the taper period. I mean when you look at it logically you have probably completed 40–50 training weeks before the taper. And if you have been consistent completed minimum 2 key workouts each week. So anywhere between 80–100 key workouts have led you to this point.

So you pick 3–4 key workouts going into the meet. And suddenly you place huge importance on the success of these workouts. Never mind the 80 or so key workouts that have preceded, if you are to win a medal you have to nail these last 3–4? Are you kidding me. Does this make any sense?

But that is what we do. Our insecurities and anxieties push us to believe we need PB workouts. It makes us all — coach, athlete, support team — feel good. And excited. But here is what it is also doing — raising adrenaline; hope; expectation; and excitement. Which all costs energy and removes focus away from the process. And onto the result.

Take-Away: Save adrenaline, excitement and emotional energy for the competition. Focus on the process. Save energies for the real fight. No medals are won on the training track.

6. Acknowledge your relationship with adrenaline

If the plane is suddenly nose diving, what do you do, you glance up from the film you are watching and take a look at the flight staff. If they are getting on with their business, preparing drinks and the meal service, then we are all good. No panic. But if they are running for the life vests and battling each other to get to get to the oxygen supply then it is time to panic.

Athletes heading into a major championship will experience moments of turbulence. That’s part of the deal. At the point of turbulence, they will glance up and see how their coach and support team will react. If coach and support crew are carrying on as normal, then it’s all good. All part of the journey. If they are panicking, changing workouts, having heated discussions then maybe something isn’t right? Boom. That momentary reaction to stress has just cost a medal.

Take-Away: As a coach or support team member know what your relationship with adrenaline is like. If you have a bad one, then acknowledge that and keep your visibility to the athletes to times where you can control your stress response.

7. Know when the cake is baked and complete with the appropriate icing

I don’t know much about baking cakes. But I do know this. You can’t unburn a burnt cake. You can put a undercooked cake back in the oven, but there is no undoing a burnt cake.

So a big part of the taper is known when to turn the heat off the athlete and let them cool down.

Once the cake is cooled down you can’t rush and put icing on top of the cake. If there cake is still hot the icing won’t work. So leave enough time before you apply the last few workouts.

Now the icing is different from the cake. It is much smaller than the cake. But it complements the cake and brings the best out of it. The last few workouts are like that icing on the cake. They need to be small, different from the main body of work, but complimentary.

For example, you can add freshness onto fitness. Or layer on top speed onto a lot of endurance. Or vice versa. Or mechanically encourage stride length to complement the stride frequency you have.

Take away: Time the start of the taper at the right point in the training process before the athlete is over cooked. Pick a few highly targeted workouts which bring the best out of the body of work you have developed.

Steve Fudge is a professional Sprint Coach for British Athletics. He coaches elite sprinters, mentors sport coaches and provides consultancy services to professional sport people and staff. You can contact Steve on Twitter or on his website.

The post Coaching Athletes : 7 Secrets To Building The Perfect Taper appeared first on Fast Running.

Whether you are an experienced marathon runner or aiming to complete your first marathon, more times than not, mistakes are made in preparation for race day. Few runners enter a marathon in peak physical condition, while many others fail to the make it to the start line because of fatigue, illness or other physical ailments.

Many variables can determine how a runner will perform on race day, some are not in our control, but the vast majority are. The good news is if we manage the things that are within our control, we have a great chance of making the starting gun in good physical condition.

The tips outlined below will help you avoid some of the common mistakes made when preparing for a marathon.

1. Marathon runners not tapering properly before the big race.

For a long run of 18 to 20 miles, it takes the average runner about four weeks to fully recover, meaning that no training runs of 18 miles or longer should be conducted during the four weeks leading up to a marathon.

During the four weeks before a marathon, discipline and the emphasis on recovery is key, not more prolonged running. Regrettably, many runners fail to do this, be it a confidence thing or foolishly feeling fitness will be lost.

The four weeks before a marathon is the time to be focusing on recovery by reducing each week’s total mileage. As a guide, aim for weekly running mileage of 80 percent, 60 percent, 40 percent, and then 25 percent of your usual levels. During this time aim to maintain your levels during high-intensity sessions.

2. How much training is right? Overtraining & Under-training…

This is a tough one and it really all depends on your current running experience and realistic targets.

If you are a new to running and targeting your first marathon aim for 45-miles a week running in total with one or two high-intensity sessions, remember quality training over quantity of miles. Based on ability and if you are attempting your first sub 3-hour marathon, target a weekly mileage total of 70-miles, with 2-speed sessions, and vary your speed work up every couple of weeks.

At the next level and again based on your realistic ability if you are aiming for a sub 2:45 and quicker marathon, you need to target 90-110 miles per week, encompassing a mixture of double training days and recovery runs. At this level, it can be a thin line between overtraining and just the right amount to hit peak performance on race day. Regardless of what level you currently are at, the most important thing to remember is quality training over quantity of weekly miles.

3. Starting Out Too Fast

All runners have done it. We are standing on the start line and just shoot off for the first mile, forgetting we have another 25.2 miles to go. Discipline is so important when running the marathon distance, and unless you are an elite marathon runner you should not be too concerned with the guy next to you, just have your own time, pace and splits in your head and stick to them. Ideally, you should be aiming to not go out too hard, preserve energy in the first half and run a faster split in the second part of the race.

Most experienced runners will tell you that the marathon isn’t a race until the final 6.2 miles. To get to this stage without lactic acid setting in and having enough energy in reserve to race toward the finish line, you need to relax and settle into your own rhythm for the first 20 miles.

4. Failing to use sports drinks correctly during the marathon

How you consume sports drinks during the marathon can be the difference between maintaining your performance evenly throughout the race and fatigue setting in too soon, resulting in a poor performance. If you are reaching for a sports drink when fatigue has already set in it’s too late.

The most important time to consume an isotonic sports drink is 10 minutes before the race, try drinking 200-300 ml at this stage. After this, 100ml should be drunk every three to five miles during the race.

5. Setting the right marathon goal time

When setting your goal time to complete the marathon in, you need to be realistic, and really ask yourself, how much training have I done? how have I performed in build-up 10k and half marathon races? It is not as simple as multiplying your 10k time or half marathon time and expecting to maintain that pace over the longer distance. A good rule of thumb is to double your half marathon time and add 10 minutes, this should be your goal time. Aim to maintain this pace to the 20-mile mark, and if you are feeling strong, kick on a bit and you might even surprise yourself and dip under the time.

The post The 5 Big Marathon Mistakes appeared first on Fast Running.