The taper week: train less, race better

What it is

Lowering your training volume before a race

What stays

Some intensity, in short sessions

How long

Longer for longer, tougher events

What is normal

Restlessness, odd-feeling legs and fleeting niggles

What to avoid

New workouts or making up for missed sessions

Last 48 hours

Move little, eat familiar food and sleep

Over the past weeks you have piled up training load: long runs, intervals, strength sessions. That work makes you fitter, but it also leaves a background tiredness you do not fully notice until it lifts. Tapering means easing the load just enough for the fatigue to fade while the fitness stays.

It is a balancing act. Keep training as usual and you carry that fatigue to the start. Stop dead and your body switches off, leaving your legs flat on race day. What tends to work is training for less time without losing touch with race pace.

Volume is what drops the most: shorter sessions, fewer kilometres, fewer reps. What is worth keeping is the spark: a brief change of pace, a handful of efforts at race intensity or a few strides at the end of an easy run.

Sticking to your usual number of sessions, even if each one is shorter, keeps your body in its routine. A simple outline for the final week:

• Shorter sessions than usual, at a comfortable pace.
• One or two short touches of race pace, stopping well before you tire.
• More time for sleep, good meals and unhurried stretching.
• No session that would take you days to recover from.

For a 10K the taper is usually short: a few easier days are enough, and keeping some speed matters because the race is run fast. For a half marathon it stretches a little, and the marathon is where it matters most: the accumulated load is bigger, so the cutback starts earlier and is more gradual.

In a Spartan or a DEKA, strength comes into play. As well as running less, lighten your heavy sessions: fewer sets of pushes, carries and throws, but without dropping the race movements entirely, so they still feel natural on the day. Grip, shoulders and legs should arrive fresh, not rusty.

Across the board, the longer and tougher the event, and the harder your training block, the more sense a longer taper makes. If you follow a plan or a coach, go with their judgement: they know your history better than any general rule.

Plenty of runners feel strange that week: restless, irritable, convinced they are losing fitness, or with heavy legs despite training less. It is common enough to have a name, the taper blues. You have energy to spare and nowhere to spend it, so your mind turns it into doubt.

Small aches that were not there before are common too: a twinge in the knee, a sharp feeling in the foot. Often these are phantom pains, sensations you notice more because there is no training to mask them, and they fade on their own. If a pain is severe, getting worse, makes you limp or feels unlike anything you have had before, do not dismiss it as nerves: see a professional before you race.

The most common mistake is trying to make up in the final days for what you did not do earlier. You cannot build fitness in a week, but you can certainly build fatigue. If you skipped sessions along the way, let them go.

• A long test session to check how you are going.
• Workouts, classes or sports you do not usually do.
• Shoes, gels or supplements you have not tried in training.
• Sudden diet changes or meals very different from your usual.
• Endless sightseeing walks the day before the race.

The two days before are about arriving rested and without surprises. A very easy jog or a short activation with a couple of pick-ups keeps your legs awake; the rest of the time, the less you are on your feet, the better.

Eat what you normally eat, drink as usual and lay out all your kit the evening before: bib, clothes, shoes and whatever you will eat before the start. Sleeping badly on the last night because of nerves is normal; what counts most is having slept well on the nights before.

• How many days before the race should I start tapering?

  It depends on the distance and on how hard your training block has been. A few days are enough for a 10K; for a marathon the taper starts earlier and is more gradual. If you follow a plan, stick to it.

• Will I lose fitness if I train less that week?

  No. Fitness built over weeks does not vanish in a few days of lower volume. What goes is the accumulated fatigue, which is exactly what you want to leave behind.

• Is it better to rest completely in the last days?

  A day off usually helps, but stopping completely for several days in a row can leave your legs feeling flat. Short, gentle movement tends to feel better than total rest.

• What should I do about aches that show up that week?

  Many are passing and go away on their own. If a pain is strong, gets worse or changes the way you move, check with your doctor or physio before the race.

• Should I do strength work before a Spartan or a DEKA?

  Yes, but less of it and lighter. Keep the race movements so they stay familiar, and avoid heavy sessions that leave you sore close to race day.