With the Chicago marathon fast approaching and a myriad of different races being completed throughout the fall, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about tapering.
For those who don’t know, ‘tapering’, ‘the taper’, or ‘taper week’ are all terms to describe the period before a race when you let your body recover from weeks of training.
The week leading up to the race, athletes significantly decrease their overall training volume. Allowing their body to rest and recover so that when race day comes, they’re recharged and ready to perform
The taper week comes with a host of unique challenges and I’ve had a handful of patients ask me questions about the taper for their upcoming races.
Here’s my anecdotal advice:
- You’ll have to TRY to relax
Most athletes who are training for a race have gotten used to training intensely throughout the week. Their workouts gradually get harder and harder throughout the weeks and months of training. The taper week, by definition, is not intense. Which results in a lot of energy that used to get spent on training, now spent on…not as much training. Relaxing will take effort. You’re going to feel like you’re losing fitness and you’ll actually feel worse than weeks when you’re training hard. Don’t panic. Your body and brain don’t know what to do with all the extra time and relaxation. Watch a movie. Read a book.
- Eat a lot of carbs. A LOT
We’ve all heard of carboloading before races. Most people think of a bowl of pasta the night before the race and think that’s good enough. But that cliche doesn’t account for the necessary quantity and time it takes for your body’s glycogen stores to truly fill up. Google says the current recommendations for carbohydrate intake before an endurance race is anywhere between 10-12 grams of carbohydrates per kg of body weight. To put that into perspective, I’m about 160 pounds (~72kg) and I’d have to eat between 720-860grams of carbs per day in the taper.
When tapering for my Ironman last November, I would cook rice 3 cups at a time and it all within a 36 hour time period and it still wasn’t technically enough. I was focusing on eating as much carbs as possible and it took effort to reach the right number of carbs.
- Low volume but high intensity training efforts
With all the shake out jogs and low intensity cycling during taper week, you’ll feel like you’re doing something wrong. I know I do. It is helpful to get a handful of high intensity efforts (think short sprints and hills) sprinkled in to your taper week. This will look like sprinting down the last block to close out your easy jog. Or trying to go up the Tower Road hill a couple times as fast as you can. This will keep the athlete in you awake while keeping overall volume low so you can recover overall throughout the week.
- Visualize yourself successfully completing the race
In my clinical practice, I’m often working with athletes that have races coming up. As we work on rehabilitating their injuries, the mental chatter can become a problem. Patients can start thinking they might not be able to complete the race and begin to doubt themselves. I try and put a stop to this as soon as possible. Especially when I’m confident the athlete will be fine. I instruct them on visualizing success. Visualizing themselves crossing the finish line and achieving their goals. This makes a difference and here’s how to do it.
How to VisualizeFirst, sit or lay down in a comfortable spot. Preferably right before you’re about to go to sleep.
Close your eyes and imagine yourself crossing the finish line with a smile.
Imagine details of the finish line. What pose will you assume as you run across the finish line? Who will be there to cheer you on? What post race snack/drink are you going to have? What is the medal going to feel like around your neck.
Details of success. Details.
In your visualizations, the trick is to get to the point where YOU FEEL like you’ve already successfully completed the race.
The point is to FEEL THE FEELING OF SUCCESS over and over and over again so you program it in your subconscious mind. This will help create the reality of success on race day
Spend about 5 minutes visualizing success each night the week before your race. FEEL success.
With the Chicago Marathon right around the corner, help out that person you know is racing and forward this email to a racer
Happy runnin
Michael
