Rounding the final curve of the 2011 1500m world championship, what was American Jenny Simpson doing sprinting alongside some of the most successful middle-distance runners in the sport? Better known as a steeple-chaser, Simpson turned to the 1500m only after an injury-plagued 2010 kept her from hurdling. She hadn't even contested the race before internationally. Now she was less than 100 meters from a gold medal.
Simpson did carry an advantage into the race. Two weeks before the world championships, she returned from her warm-up run to find the Air Force Academy's indoor track filled with screaming cadets, invited by her coach, Juli Benson, to watch Simpson's last speed workout. In that charged atmosphere, Simpson ran an 800m time trial in 2:00.0 at 7,200 feet. "It gave me a huge psychological and emotional boost," Simpson says. Armed with confidence, she used her two-week taper to harness her speed as the miles dropped.
That was a sharp contrast to 2009, when as the overwhelming favorite at the NCAA cross country championships, Simpson collapsed 3 kilometers into the race en route to finishing 163rd. The physical aspect of the taper had gone fine, but her emotional control upended in the final week. To her, it wasn't just a race--it was the end of her college career. "And I let that start making me nervous," she told Flotrack, the day after. Two years later, she vowed to learn from that mistake.
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At the world championships, primed with confidence and sharp, rested legs, Simpson accelerated into lane three and saw open track for the first time all evening. Every stride pushed her farther and farther into the lead as her competitors rigged up. With 50 meters remaining, she allowed one single thought to enter her mind: "Oh, my God, I'm going to win." The shock of this realization was still on Simpson's face as she crossed the line in front of all the favorites. It felt just as good two years later when Simpson used a similar approach to earn a world championships silver medal.
Running above and beyond your perceived capabilities when it matters most--isn't this the dream of every competitive distance runner? Intelligent training and good competition are critical in setting you up for the race of your dreams, but just as important is nailing your taper.
What you do in the one to four weeks before a goal race can take your performance to the next level--or sabotage those plans of greatness. But how do you know if your approach to tapering is giving you the best chance for success?
THE PERSONALIZED SCIENCE OF CUTTING BACK
Figuring out what constitutes a well-designed taper has been a healthy obsession for Inigo Mujika. A professor of physiology and training at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of Endurance Training: Science and Practice, Mujika has published extensively on tapering. He has found plenty of evidence that a taper works; a 2 to 3 percent increase in performance is the norm, with a range of 0.5 to 6 percent. The most successful tapers, he notes, are the ones tailored to the needs of an individual.
"Our studies indicate that an efficient taper may last between one and four weeks," he says. "The optimal duration does not depend on age, experience or event distance. It depends on each athlete's adaptation and recovery profile. Some athletes recover faster than others; some have long-lasting training adaptations, whereas some others detrain quickly. "
Until the 1980s, most coaches assumed the biggest benefit of tapering was resting muscles. While it is true that rested muscles increase in strength and power output, many of the biggest gains occur in the circulatory system, where total blood volume and red blood cell counts increase. Tapered athletes sometimes note increases in VO2 max and running economy, while storing glycogen more readily. Markers in the blood indicate better recovery from training stress during a taper.
Many of these changes mark a return to normal for energy systems that have been heavily taxed by months of high mileage and intense workouts. Combined with an increase in fitness, it makes for a potent blend. "Reducing training allows your body to consolidate its gains," says Pete Pfitzinger, author of Advanced Marathoning. "Physiologically, every athlete will benefit from a taper. If an athlete does not respond well to a taper, then either the taper was not well-designed or the athlete has it in their head that they do not need to taper."
Determining what works requires experimentation. For instance, most training plans for races 5K and longer reduce weekly mileage in the four weeks leading up to a goal race. Someone who detrains quickly, however, would want to keep his or her training volume steady until one or two weeks out from the race or risk losing aerobic fitness. Similarly, an athlete who requires longer periods of recovery between workouts would not want to start intense workouts every other day in the two weeks leading up to a goal race.
Attentive coaches and athletes have a good feeling about how different bodies respond. Eric Heins, director of track and field and cross country at Northern Arizona University, listens to his athletes when planning the last four weeks of the season. "Not everyone is the same," he says. "The majority of kids, if you back them off too much, they get sluggish. That's why we're going to gradually drop. On the other side, some guys don't even want to drop. For them maybe it's cutting the mileage only the last three to four days."
TAPERING STYLES
Every training plan treats tapering in a slightly different way. Athletes can determine which plan is best for them by choosing the one that plays to their particular strengths and weaknesses. Most tapers fall into one of three general categories:
TAPER #1 - Sharp Shift
(Low mileage, high intensity)
The sharp taper is the most well-known and has the longest history. Arthur Lydiard advocated a two-week taper before a goal race, highlighted by the season's most intense workout 10 days out. The last week and a half consisted of short, fast workouts with all intervals performed faster than race pace. One of Lydiard's favorite workouts during his speed development phase was 2 miles of 50m sprint/50m float. To accommodate this increased intensity, he cut weekly mileage by 60 to 70 percent compared to the base period and reserved the final few days for short recovery runs.
Many of the particulars of Lydiard's system have fallen by the wayside over the past 50 years, but plenty of coaches--from Peter Coe to Joe Vigil to Mark Wetmore--use some variation of these principles when preparing athletes for a major competition. The emphasis of this taper is on fast running, with recovery the top priority. Based on his decades of research, professor Inigo Mujika of Spain offers the following general guidelines for this type of taper:
Reduce training volume by 40 to 60 percent compared with the previous training cycle.
Maintain training intensity.
Keep training frequency (number of runs per week) relatively constant if you're an experienced high-mileage runner; decrease it slightly if you're not.
Reduce daily volume progressively as race day approaches.
TAPER #2 - Moderate Cut-Down
(Medium mileage, variable intensity)
Not all coaches are keen to hammer their athletes' legs before a big race. This includes Jason Fitzgerald, a 2:39 marathoner and coach at strengthrunning.com. "Boosting the intensity dramatically like many runners do erodes their aerobic fitness and isn't event-specific," Fitzgerald says. "They feel sharp and fast, but their race-specific fitness declines."
Fitzgerald and other moderate-taper practitioners decrease volume only 10 to 20 percent each week over a two-week period, centering workouts during this phase around goal pace. While they maintain the intensity of the workouts, they usually cut volume in half or more as the taper progresses. A runner training for a 10K, for instance, might run 10 × 1,000m at 10K pace two weeks out from race day, but only 4 × 1,000m the week of the race. Long runs and lactate threshold workouts also continue in these plans at diminished levels, to keep all energy systems sharp.
Eric Heins followed this philosophy in guiding Northern Arizona's men to second place at the 2013 NCAA cross country championships. "I've found that if we stop doing those thresholds and tempo runs, middle of the year they start to feel a little bit flat," he says. "We don't get too far away from the high-end aerobic threshold."
Another way to reduce the training stress in a moderate taper is by halving the number of quality sessions while maintaining 80 to 90 percent of weekly volume until race week. Desi (Davila) Linden, runner-up at the 2011 Boston Marathon and a 2012 Olympian, favors this approach when preparing for a major race.
"During the taper it's important to rest up and recover, but with the high mileage it's probably more important to maintain some consistency," Linden says. "If I head into race day a little more tired than I'd like, it's not the worst thing. I've been training to run on tired legs, and they are still far more rested than normal. The body craves consistency, and if I cut back too much I'll end up feeling lethargic and flat--something that I haven't been preparing for."
TAPER #3 - Minor Reduction
(Medium-high mileage, medium-high intensity)
Some coaches are less keen on tapering. "Your body is so used to doing things one way that if you change things abruptly it doesn't feel right," says Mark Coogan, the current Dartmouth College cross country coach who will be leading Team New Balance later this year. "We keep getting better and better each meet, and we're not cutting back. Sometimes I just don't see the point of starting to cut everything out to try and improve even more when we're already improving every week."
Coogan's former athletes made a case for their coach's viewpoint in the last year. Ben True placed sixth at the world cross country championships and helped the United States earn a surprise silver medal. Sam Chelanga opened his 2014 campaign with a 13:04 indoor 5,000m, just 3 seconds behind Olympic silver medalist Galen Rupp. And Dartmouth senior Abbey D'Agostino won the 2013 NCAA cross country title going away.
In D'Agostino's case, her weekly mileage dropped from 70 to 60 only the week of the NCAA championships. Even then, Coogan says, "She was still doing doubles. She was keeping her routine, what her body is used to."
As with the other tapers, the minor taper has athletes running the season's biggest workout 10 to 14 days before the goal race. One concession this taper makes is a day off or easy running on an as-needed basis in the days leading up to the race. Before running a world championships "A" time of 15:11 at the Mt. SAC Relays last April, D'Agostino ran a cut-down mile workout that started at her goal 5K pace and progressively sped up. On 3 minutes rest, her splits were 4:49, 4:42 and 4:36. "That was really, really hard," Coogan says. "When she ran the race, she said, 'That workout I did 10 days before the race was harder than this.' She could remember that and trust in her training."
MASTERING THE MINI-TAPER
No one likes to go into a race exhausted. But in order to have your best performance at your goal race, odds are you'll have to train through any number of less important races. In order to prepare for these moderately important races without affecting your overall training, one thing to consider is scheduling mini-tapers.
Pete Pfitzinger suggests saving the two-week taper for only the two or three most important races of the year. For moderately important races, he prefers a modified one-week taper; for less important races, he recommends only a four-day taper. In each of these scenarios, maintain your usual training frequency and intensity until the beginning of a mini-taper.
In Pfitzinger's plan, these modified tapers generally take the place of a recovery week and include moderate mileage and almost no high-intensity running. Instead of sharpening up for a big race, the performance-enhancing effect comes from reducing the total training load. This differs greatly from an end-of-season taper (when you maintain intensity) but makes it easier for you to resume normal training after the race's conclusion.
Below are samples of each type of taper. Don't hesitate to adjust them to better suit your racing needs and recovery profile. Some runners prefer the up-tempo work on the last day before the race.
THE RISKS OF CUTTING BACK
For all the potential benefits, tapering has inherent risks, too. At the physiological level, these tend to be small. Lower mileage decreases the amount of energy burned on a daily basis, creating the potential for weight gain during the taper period. The increase in total blood volume is for the most part beneficial, but it also dilutes iron stores. And, depending on the length of the taper and the amount of volume that is dropped, there is a possibility of losing aerobic fitness. This is particularly true for runners whose mileage was already low to begin with and whose training history was shorter.
The larger risks associated with tapering are psychological. These trouble spots seem to follow basic plots:
THE FEAR OF LOSING STRENGTH
Success at distance running requires a high level of commitment, one that often edges toward obsessive-compulsive. In general, the more miles you run, the better runner you'll be. Many runners manifest this as a fixation with weekly mileage, believing it gives them their Superman-esque ability to run at a high level. For them, cutting miles is kryptonite. The key to overcoming this fear is to find a tapering program that meets aerobic needs and realize that runners don't lose months of hard work by slightly backing off during the last two weeks before a competition.
"When I send out the weekly training sheets [to my athletes], they see that little black number with the week's mileage, and they get so obsessed with it," says Eric Heins, Northern Arizona University coach. "I try to encourage them not to worry about that number so much, especially during the taper, but rather to go on feel so we don't get into that psychological aspect of, 'I've got to hit 100 miles this week.' "
THE CONFUSION OF NOT FEELING FANTASTIC
It stands to reason that if tapering is the act of increasing recovery by reducing the overall training load, a runner should feel completely unburdened during the process. Yet many runners only feel marginally better running during a taper, if they feel better at all, which is important to realize, Jenny Simpson says.
"People have this expectation that they're going to feel so much better," she says. "I don't get on the track and think, 'Oh, wow, I feel like I could run 100 miles at this pace.' I don't feel especially fresh or especially good. I think you have to internalize the rational side of it, that your body is definitely rested and more ready for a difficult effort. It's more faith than a physical feeling for me, anyway."
THE STRESS OF WAITING WITH NOWHERE TO GO
Less time spent training means more time to relax at home, catch up on work, spend time with the family . . . or fret (and fret, and fret) over the upcoming race. Tapering disturbs many deeply ingrained lifestyle patterns, increasing the likelihood that the mind will obsess over future events it can't control. One way to combat this is to try and embrace the race and all its potential outcomes.
"You're going to be nervous, you're going to be terrified, but that's part of the experience," Simpson says. "Your psychological edge really needs to ramp up, and every little bit of doubt has to be fought off. That's really taxing, and I think that's part of why tapering is difficult. But that's also why I think the physical backing off during a taper is good, because you're expending so much energy keeping yourself calm."
TAPERS GONE WILD
Everything was going perfectly in 2011 for Desiree (Davila) Linden as she prepared for the Boston Marathon. That is, until she and her fellow Hansons-Brooks training partners left the dreary Michigan winter for the pleasant Florida sun 10 days before the biggest race of her life. Once there, they made every effort to prepare for the unique Boston experience. This included simulating its odd start time of 10 a.m., even when the weather became unseasonably hot. Under these conditions, Linden attempted to run an easy, confidence-boosting workout of 2 × 3 miles at marathon race pace.
"Turns out it would be the one workout of the training segment that I would just completely bomb," she says. "I was pissed at the time, but I was able to look back at months of quality work and see it didn't matter how that one day went or how that one day felt. It didn't change the fact that I was ready for a great race."
Linden was right. She went on to run 2:22:38, the fastest time by an American woman in Boston history.
Pete Pfitzinger wasn't so lucky. In 1980, he felt in peak shape coming off a series of weeks at 120-plus miles. A win at the New England TAC 10,000m championship certainly felt in the cards. That is, until he got overzealous in his training. "The error was doing a set of 10 by 300 meters as hard as I could on Tuesday before the Saturday race," Pfitzinger recalls. "The disastrous element was doing them with [future Boston Marathon champion] Greg Meyer, who, as a 3:58 miler, was much faster than I."
Come race day, Pfitzinger's calves were screaming in agony. Ten laps in, they began to lock up, and from there until the finish it was "a long day at the office." The prohibitive favorite going in, Pfitzinger finished more than a minute behind the leaders and limped off the track having learned two important lessons. "One was that while maintaining some fast running is useful during a taper, it is not wise to try to set personal bests during workouts," he says. "And two, be careful when training with a faster runner. They look so relaxed you can accidentally run way too hard."
PLANNING THE PERFECT TAPER
Whether your race takes 4 minutes or 4 hours, the same tapering elements apply. This includes a decrease in training mileage, a maintenance of or increase in training intensity and a day off if needed. "There is no evidence to suggest that an 800m runner, or a 100m sprinter for that matter, should be tapering differently than a marathoner," says Inigo Mujika, author of Endurance Training: Science and Practice.
In reality, tapering for different events takes on the same artistry as the training that brought you to this point. Much of this has to do with the specific demands of a race and the training that has preceded it. "Runners training for shorter races of 5K and below need to be sharp and have some snap in their legs," coach Jason Fitzgerald says. Runners in longer races may need to focus more on race-pace workouts and ensuring complete recovery from high-mileage training. Below are some examples of how best to taper for different race distances.
1500M TO 5,000M
Getting comfortable at race pace and doing shorter, faster intervals to feel snappy are of primary importance for athletes competing on the track and at shorter road race distances. Decrease the volume of the workouts and the total weekly mileage to allow for more complete recovery between these shorter, faster workouts. Even athletes who prefer gentler tapers will want to make sure they're rested enough to hit their goal paces during workouts.
EXAMPLE: After nailing her 800m time trial two weeks out from the 2011 world championships, Jenny Simpson began a sharp taper all the way to the world championships final. One week before the 1500m prelims began, Simpson ran a short workout consisting of several aerobic 400s (around 15K pace), followed by 3 × 300m at goal pace with close to full recovery. Two days later she ran her usual 3-mile warm-up, did a set of 5 × 50m to hone her speed and power, then finished with a short cool-down jog. The final four days were nothing but 20- to 45-minute easy runs to consolidate training gains and ensure peak freshness on race day.
Simpson also made a concerted effort to peak mentally at the same time. "I think the whole week of the world championship, up until the last 5 meters (of the final), was less dramatic for me because I was so in the moment, every single moment," she says. "I was so focused on taking it one step at a time."
10K TO HALF MARATHON
Cranking out fast 200s isn't necessary for athletes preparing for a race lasting 30 minutes to 2 hours. Having a high lactate threshold and VO2 max is of primary importance to these athletes, as is good running economy and a solid endurance base. This lengthy list of requirements often means that tapering for these events touches on a number of energy systems over the last several weeks, much like you would during the middle of your training cycle. The key is to reduce the total volume of these workouts to promote fuller recovery.
EXAMPLE: In the taper before the 2013 NCAA cross country championships (10K), coach Eric Heins maintained similar workouts for his Northern Arizona harriers but scaled them back. For instance, a midseason 6 × 1600m with 90 seconds rest morphed into 4 × 1600m with 3 minutes rest two weeks out from race day. The added recovery allowed his athletes to run faster paces when their fitness was highest but still lowered the overall training stress by cutting one-third of the workout volume. Another workout, known as "The Lumberjack," alternates a set of 4 × 400m a little slower than mile pace with 10 minutes at lactate threshold pace. As the season wound down, they cut the number of sets while increasing the pace slightly. This allowed them to touch on multiple energy systems without over-whelming any one in particular.
"At the beginning of the year, I'd say 75 percent of our workouts are tempos and 25 percent are hills, fartleks and other faster stuff," Heins says. "That inverts at the end of the season. Once the mileage comes off, you've got to increase the intensity to make up for that extra energy the guys are going to have."
THE MARATHON AND BEYOND
Tapering for a marathon doesn't look too different from tapers for other events. There are small doses of specific, race-pace work, low-key lactate threshold or VO2 max workouts, a long run, lots of recovery days and a general lessening of the training load. That said, many athletes race a marathon only once or twice per year, so getting the taper right takes on a higher level of importance.
"I tended to be a bit obsessive with marathon preparation and tapering, such as always going to the dentist about a month before the race," says Pete Pfitzinger, two-time Olympian, physiologist and author.
EXAMPLE: Knowing your own response to different types of training is important when tapering for a marathon. In Desiree Linden's case, this meant maintaining most of her training volume while cutting back on workouts. Two weeks before the 2013 Berlin Marathon, she ran 103 miles and did two workouts: a 20-mile long run and 3 × 2 miles at marathon pace. Race week, Linden ran 92 miles and did only a minor workout of 3 × 2 minutes faster than race pace. The rest of her running was purely aerobic.
Mark Coogan charted a similar path leading up to the 1996 Olympic trials marathon, having averaged 120 miles per week during his buildup. "I maybe ran 80 miles race week, but the whole rest of the month I was in the 100s," he says. "When I've tried to cut back things in a taper, yeah, I might feel better walking up the stairs, but I always felt flat on my runs."
That little reduction in mileage allowed Coogan to place second at the trials and run 2:13:05, a PR on a hilly course. Such is the beautiful mystery of finding the perfect taper.
