Taper Time
Your goal event is in sight. You’ve banked all the hard work, now you want to freshen up to get your mind and body in the right place to tackle the challenge to the best of your ability. This period is called the taper.
There is a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to the taper. Some think that it’s a time to just stop moving and to house carbs like your life depends on it! Others think it’s a myth, that if they stop moving their hard earned fitness will disappear into the ether. I’m here to tell you that, if approached in the right way, the taper is a powerful tool to maximise your performance.
How should I approach the taper?
Depending on the length of the race you are completing, the taper should be 7-10 days in duration. This gives the body time to freshen up but not get stale or start losing fitness.
I like to approach the taper by reducing volume but maintaining intensity. Its important to remember that very little of what you are doing during this phase will have any physiological effect on your running. It takes weeks for these effects to fully sink in so don’t be tempted to push when the legs start to freshen up.
There are various suggestions online on how to reduce volume, by x% each week. In reality, it’s a bit more of a graded process with runs getting progressively shorter as you get nearer to the race. I still like to keep a long run the weekend before. This will usually be 1-1.5hr and will include race effort to help prepare mentally for the task at hand. This shouldn’t be taxing, aiming to finish the session wanting to go further and faster.
Including a light workout the week of the race is a good way to keep the body switched on. This should be a feel good workout. One of my favourites is:
- 10min warm up, 4x3min @ 5-6/10 with 2min jog recovery between reps, 10min cool down
It generates little to no fatigue but gets you flowing on the trails. I have only ever felt excited to race after completing it. Don’t aim to break the sound barrier, keep it fun and controlled.
I have so much free time on my hands, what shall I do?
I like to think of the taper as a time when the focus shifts from physical to mental preparedness. This can include a number of different factors from organising logistics around the race e.g. collecting bib, accommodation, crew etc to preparing yourself mentally for the challenges that may lie ahead e.g. low points in the race, how to approach the start of the race, how you might feel in the back half of the race, how to tackle stomach upset/heat/dehydration etc. Ultra running is so often limited by something other than physical ability and this is your opportunity to tackle those problems from the comfort of your own sofa (better than 10hrs deep in a race!).
I suffer from phantom pains, injuries and race anxiety. Help!
I bunch these into the same category because the phantom problems are so often a physical manifestation of our mental state. It’s extremely unlikely that when you ease off training you develop an injury. What’s more likely is that you have some underlying worries about race day and your brain expresses these as physical problems. Heavy legs, general aches, fatigue, all great ways to encourage you to either not race or prepare more diligently. I see it as a problem with two solutions – a) tackle the underlying ‘worries’ and/or b) address the physical symptom.
To tackle the worries, the above point of preparing logistics in plenty of advance for race day is important. Don’t leave packing your kit, finding out where bib collection etc until the day of the event. Doubts about your ability to run the distance or achieve your goal are common. How, when two days ago you were on top of the world and crushing sessions, can the confidence to run disappear? Good techniques to instill confidence are:
- Look back over your training, particularly at key sessions or ones that you feel went particularly well
- Use positive affirmations to reiterate that you are a running machine, a metronome, an unbreakable force! Speak them into the mirror, right into your brain (that’ll teach you to play tricks on me!)
- Use your support network. Voice your concerns and let the people around you emphasise all the hard work you’ve put in to get yourself here
To address the physical symptoms I like to spend a little more time performing gentle stretching/rolling/massaging targeting the problematic spots. I only use routines that I am familiar with and emphasis on the ‘gentle’. This isn’t the time to be contorting your body into the scorpion pose.
Most importantly, don’t use your runs to ‘test the legs’ or to ‘stretch them out’. This is the time to let them recover and to stock pile those beautiful carbs we’ve talked so much about.
There is a huge individual element to all this. What works for that runner on instagram isn’t necessarily the right thing for you (nor even an accurate depiction of their training). So, listen to your body. When it says rest, ease of the gas and eat everything in sight. When it says go harder, resist the urge and just enjoy feeling fantastic. After all, isn’t that what this whole running thing is about.
Best of luck next weekend for those running the UK Ultra events. They know how to put on one hell of an event so good times are guaranteed.