There’s one thing that everyone can agree on when it comes to marathon training, it’s hard. Whether your goal is to just finish or run your personal best, you will need to test your limits in training to cover the 26.2-mile distance. However, one piece of the training puzzle that is overlooked is the need to be fresh on race day. The process of letting your body recover before a big race is called the taper.
Fitness improvements happen through a process called super compensation. During this process you stress your body in workouts, become tired, allow yourself to recover, and now you’re more easily able to handle that previous stress. Stress, rest, recover, improve. In a well-constructed training program, you should see this cycle repeat day to day and week to week. But this cycle also operates on a larger macro level. It is for this reason that the final weeks leading up to the race are significantly lower in volume.
Why taper?
The stress, rest, recovery, and improvement cycle is ideal. However, schedule and lifestyle factors can increase the stress we experience in training and increase the recovery times needed to improve. Because of this, even the most finely tuned runners will have some of their fitness masked by fatigue during the bulk of their training.
The goal of the taper is to unmask that fitness by cutting back the runner's volume, while maintaining the runner’s training intensity. Lower training volume improves recovery, while maintaining the runner’s intensity helps them “sharpen” before race day.
For athletes that come down from peak mileage, their fitness can be maintained at 50% training volume for 4-6 weeks without any fitness loss. Even during a period of complete inactivity, most runners won’t see a significant drop-in fitness until the 10-day mark. It’s much easier to maintain fitness than it is to gain.
Challenges of the Taper:
While the taper comes as a physical relief to most runners, it tends to be one of the most psychologically challenging parts of the training.
Focus: The focus of the taper is not on “running less” the focus of the taper is “recovery.” This is an important distinction because you will have more time on your hands with the reduced run volume. Do your best not to fill in that extra time with drinks at the bar, late night gaming sessions, or other physically taxing activities. While those activities aren’t directly tied to running, stress is stress, and the focus of the taper is recovery.
Trust: You need to trust that your fitness will be there. In the final 2-3 weeks of the season there’s little you can do to improve your fitness, but plenty you can do to hurt your recovery. You may find yourself questioning if there's anything else you can do to ensure a good run on race day. These are normal thoughts that creep into every runner’s head during the taper. Do your best to push those doubts aside and trust that your body is up to the task.
Energy Swings: Some runners report having very high energy during taper weeks, others report feeling terrible during taper weeks. This is due to the change in activity levels, mixed with the pressure of an approaching race day. Your goal should be to strive for the middle, a level of stoicism. Taper isn’t a relief from training, it’s a part of training. Your fitness is there, and tapering will make you race ready, even if everyone’s body and mind takes a different path to get there.
Final Thoughts:
On paper, tapering is easy. In practice, it’s another skill that an athlete can develop and perfect. As race day approaches it’s easy to stress out about the race itself, but marathoning is a journey, with the race itself being the conclusion. Focus on your taper, trust your training, and use it to be the final piece of your marathon training puzzle.
