great post on marathon taper

[Paul Petersen]

Here's a great post from therunzone.com forum. I liked it so much, it's worth a copy/paste into this forum. Enjoy.

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As a starting point, Tinman covers the issue as well as anyone with his Marathon Peaking article on the front page.

As a general matter, I think one of the worst things you can do is to force the taper. Two weeks is a good benchmark for a taper length. In some cases a taper of one week will be appropriate while a taper as long as three weeks might be appropriate for other runners. Generally a full throttle three week taper is a bit much, but oftentimes week three before the marathon will have somewhat of a reduction in mileage simply because you won't attempt any heavy long runs or other big workouts so close to the race. If a three week taper results from cutting back your big workouts 14-21 days before the marathon, then that shouldn't be a problem so long as the rest of your training remains consistent with what you had been doing throughout your marathon buildup.

Traditionally distance runners would cut mileage and raise intensity during the taper. This strategy may work fine for mid-distance races, but for the marathon and other long distance races a better approach is to initiate the taper in week three before the race (days 14-21 pre- race day) by reducing intensity while holding mileage relatively steady. What does it mean to reduce intensity? Reducing intensity can be as simple as cutting back the load of your quality sessions. For instance, if your longest tempo interval session during your buildup was 6 x mile at half marathon pace, ten days before the marathon you might run 4 x mile instead. Contrary to some popular belief, the marathon taper is not the time to "take advantage of" those fresh legs and start running some fast 400s-800s. Some light and peppy intervals are perfectly fine to maintain stride fluidity, but you must resist the temptation to run too many intervals at too fast a pace. If you do run some faster intervals (5k pace and faster), just make sure they aren't too long and that the rest is not too short (shortening the rest on fast intervals can make you too sharp for the marathon distance...you want to be a super efficient Honda Civic for the marathon; not a powerful but inefficient Porsche 911).

*(From Brad Hudson: "I don’t believe in it," he says, of the typical taper that significantly reduces mileage for three weeks while maintaining or increasing intensity. "We don’t reduce volume, but we do a lot of easy running. It is a taper in intensity, rather than a taper in mileage." He adds, "The metabolic system is so important for the marathon. You don’t necessarily have to be a great athlete, you have to have a good engine, to burn fuel efficiently."......Note if you study Hudson's training, you will see many similarities to Tinman, since they have collaborated in the past)

The more mileage you run the more you CAN taper. If you are running 90-100+ miles per week with 9-12 runs per week and a normal long run of 20-22, cutting back to 7-8 runs and a long run of 17-18 three weeks before the race will still leave you with a rather hearty training load of 70-80 miles for the week. Note, even at high mileage levels such a taper might not be advisable because a sharp reduction in workload can be a shock to the system. The risk of "shock" is one reason why we use the tool of intensity reduction before mileage reduction. Reducing intensity while keeping mileage close to normal is one way to give the body a break while maintaining some level of consistency. If you are running 50-60 (or even fewer) miles per week, a traditional taper will leave you with virtually zero training for the final 10 days before the race. Tinman has identified that 50 mpw range as a minimum level to maintain aerobic vitality. Certainly you will need to cut back race week especially if you need to travel someplace, but coming from 50-60 miles per week to 30-40 in the preceding 10-14 days could rob you of that aerobic strength that you need in the final 10k.

The whole idea of the full blast three week taper was popularized in the mass media by a popular running magazine (guess which one) published by a bunch of old school 1970s guys who trained mega mileage and needed a three week taper in part to lick their wounds from months of hard and often crude training. A three week taper may have worked for them (and others like them) but when you are running 4000+ miles per year for several years consecutively you have so much aerobic base that going from 140mpw to 70 miles during the taper (a 50% reduction) may actually do some good. However, I would note that at the highest levels of the sport today, a two week taper seems more common since training practices have been refined so that higher mileage runners aren't arriving to taper time licking their wounds. Unfortunately, novice and intermediate level marathoners have adopted the three week taper as gospel, even though it results in them doing virtually no running for the final ten days before the race.

On a related note, if you get to taper time with a sense of relief or feel like you "need" the taper, there is a good chance that you need to revisit your training plan for your next big race. As Brad Hudson says, "You shouldn’t be relying on the taper. If you’re not feeling good, you’re not hitting your workouts, you’re not fresh, you’re training too hard — you need to back off anyway." While getting to the point of overcooked sends you into damage control mode rather than peaking mode, you can use the hard earned lessons to refine your training for future marathons and other key events.

[Sasha Pachev]

Paul - thanks for posting this. Very helpful insights with which I agree.

[Steve P]

As in many things in running, this is one point of view on the "best" approach to tapering, but it's hard to know what is the best way without a large experimental or observational study, which would be difficult to do in an unbiased way. And even then it is possible that one way works well for one person while another way works better for another person. So I try to learn the different points of view and experiment with what works for me. And you know, it's also very possible that neither way really helps or hurts as much as we might think.

The above paragraph could apply to about half of the posts in this forum.

My own opinion is that reducing the volume but maintaining intensity is a reasonable approach because it helps with muscle memory for the tempo I want to run but also gives the muscles a chance to repair themselves after the damage incurred in the previous weeks of higher volume.

[Steve P]

Here's an opinion from Michael Phelps' coach Bob Bowman:

"THOUGH PHELPS tends to make winning look easy, even a single gold medal performance requires any number of stars to align. Take the process of tapering, of physically preparing not only to be able to win against the world's best but also to do it at exactly the right moment, at an event that occurs once every four years. This, as one might imagine, is diabolically complicated. 'When you taper swimmers for a meet, it's like getting a haircut,' says Bob Bowman, Phelps's coach of 12 years. 'You never know if it's any good until it's too late.' The competitor needs to be deeply rested but not so much that fitness is lost; loose, but with all of his edge. And there's no one-size-fits-all method: Everyone peaks differently. Phelps's ideal race preparation, for instance, might destroy another swimmer."

(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1143980/index.htm)

[Cheryl Keith]

Here's a question that I think is somewhat related to the topic. 

1.  In this year's New York City marathon, both the male and female winners had taken substantial time off serious training and racing sometime prior to the race.  According to the commentators, the female winner had taken off two years to give birth and help with family matters.  The male winner (Meb) had been injured in 2007 and had taken off 13 to 14 months of serious training.

2.  Paula Radcliffe had a hip fracture a month or so prior to the Bejing Olympics.  She obviously could not do regular running, and according to the commentators had spent six or so hours daily doing pool running prior to the Olympics.  She didn't have a great race in Bejing, but about two months later she won the New York City marathon.

3.  In 1984, Joan Benoit had knee surgery I believe a short time prior to the Olympic trails.  She spent a lot of time biking to keep in shape.  She won the 1984 Olympic marathon going away and said at the end that she felt so good she could have run it again.

I could list other examples but I think these suffice.  The question is, why do sometimes great performances follow a substantial lay-off from serious running?   Could the total rest from running sometimes be beneficial?  Maybe rest isn't preached enough to distance runners.  Any thoughts?

[Jon Allen]

Yes- some time to rest, both mentally, physically, and emotionally, can be a benefit.  Especially if it is "forced" upon you (i.e. injury, child birth) so that you don't have to feel guilty about "not" training.  Ryan Hall takes 2 weeks completely off after big marathons.  Time off can be good.

[Josse]

I agree with down time.  I don't think you can get faster if you don't take it easy after a hard training cycle.  I also agree with the post on marathon taper, I have never felt good with the 3 week traditional taper I like to do about a 1.5 week taper.

[Paul Petersen]

I usually run best after near-career-ending injuries. That's why I only run well every other year (2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 were great; 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 were real stinkers). I'm looking forward to a good, horrible injury in 2010, so that I can start gearing up for 2011.

[Kory Wheatley]

Paul we will pray that curse is broken.  But, the body does break down after a hard year and having a lay-off year maybe is a good training approach.  Especially when your forced to do so with an injury.

[Cheryl Keith]

Thanks for the responses.  So Paul if I understand you correctly, you think the down time recovering from injury lead to you having breakout years?  My question is, why isn't rest preached more?  Why do we only hear run x number of miles 6 days a week year round?  Should we all act like we have an injury and take off running time each year in order to get faster?

[Paul Petersen]

Thanks for the responses.  So Paul if I understand you correctly, you think the down time recovering from injury lead to you having breakout years?  My question is, why isn't rest preached more?  Why do we only hear run x number of miles 6 days a week year round?  Should we all act like we have an injury and take off running time each year in order to get faster?

Well, I'm being mostly tongue-in-cheek. But I do think some down time is good. It can either be a couple weeks completely off, or just really easy miles for a few weeks or a month or so. Injuries are never good things, but obviously some good can come out of it. But we should be doing these good things anyway (rest), rather than waiting for an injury to force the issue.  Again, this doesn't have to be complete time off, but could be simple running for a while rather than training. (the two are different).

I think that rest periods are indeed preached by running experts, but not so much within actual runner communities. It's just too fun to race a lot, and the feeling of fitness is rather addicting, so I think it's in our nature to push the envelope too far.

Just to balance things out, I also think continuity of training is very important. Injuries, sickness, and other interruptions disrupt this and impede increases in fitness. To once again draw examples from my own life, my best racing years (mentioned above) also came during long periods of interrupted training. Never missed more than a day or two in a row during these times. Some magical happens during these really consistent periods, and fitness seems to build very fast. In some ways, I think that consistency is almost more important than total volume. In other words, I think I can run faster on a steady 60 mpw, and not missing any days, than doing 90 miles/week but being really inconsistent by missing weeks or days and letting mileage wildly fluctuate.

Another concept that I feel is important (but under-utilized) is periodization. For example, going through a phase of base, a phase of 10K, then marathon. Repeat the theme and variations. A period of base, a period of half marathon training, a period of rest (easy base), then more half marathon, and then marathon. Rest (or active rest) is part of periodization and has a role in "training". Doing the same training (esp marathon training) over and over again, all year long, IMO leaves runners stale and open to injury. Mix things up a little, train for different distances over the course of a year, and you will have opportunities to work on both speed and endurance. I think many runners only train for the marathon...which hurts them in the long run. A nice 10K cycle, or a season-long focus on the half marathon, will keep things fresh and ultimately decrease marathon times too. Yeah, running 3-4 marathons/year can be fun, but I've become convinced (the hard way) that it's a bad way to go if you are serious about getting the best performance out of yourself in the marathon. If your goals are to run a lot of marathons, travel, and do the whole "multiple marathon" thing, then that's great. Been there myself, so I understand. But I think two, or even one, marathon per year is probably optimal in terms of pure performance. Just my opinion, so no need to get upset if you disagree. 

[Bonnie]

Paul, you are awesome, and not just because I agree with every word you just said 

This is actually what both Lydiard and Jack Daniels advocate and if you follow Salazars group (Kara Goucher) and Mahon's group (Deena, Ryan Hall and Meb) this is how they approach it as well.  Cross-country, a little short distance, a little half-marathon in there and then WHAMMO -- a big marathon. 

[Cheryl Keith]

Paul--No disagreement here.  I'm always interested in reading your thoughtful and insightful comments.