Coming off minor injury - how to handle marathon taper 3 weeks away

[David S]

Hi there,

I have been training pretty hard for the Austin Marathon on February 14th.  I had some good 60 mile weeks.  Unfortunately, I aggravated my sciatic nerve and had to take last week off from runinng and missed a 20 miler.  I should be back up to 40 miles this week and running my last 20-22 miler on Saturday. 

What to do now?  Should I go try to go back to 55-60 miles in week 3 and then taper down from there?  I feel like I am walking a tightrope here as I want to be ready but at the same time I don't want to reaggravate my nerve and have to miss the marathon all together.  I don't plan on doing any "hard" runs for the next week, just base plus some MGP miles.

Thanks in advance,

David

[Paul Petersen]

I would taper no longer than 7-10 days.

[Sean Sundwall]

Agree...three week tapers are for Hal Higdon-ites who are less concerned about performance and more concerned about finishing. Three week tapers are not for people who care about maximizing performance. I would do your last long (18-22) run two weeks before Austin. So basically a two week taper. However, I would also recommend that in your taper -- even on race week -- you do NOT slow down the intensity of your speed workouts. Shorten them a bit but don't back off the intensity/speed or you will lose some speed and sharpness come race morning.

[David S]

Thanks guys.

This week is 3 weeks out - I am going to go back up to 60 miles with an 18 mile run this Saturday.  I plan on putting in 45 or so miles week 2 and 30 or so the final week, keeping intensity the same.  I just wondered if I how I should approach the build up and then taper after coming off of a zero mile week so far into training.  Following the above plan my weekly miles for 7 weeks will end up looking something like this: ...60, 40, 0, 40, 60, 45, 30, marathon day.

Not ideal but it is what it is.