Pros and Cons of a 2 week marathon taper, and a 3 week marathon taper. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Pros and Cons of a 2 week marathon taper, and a 3 week marathon taper. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
how 'bout 2 and a half?
why does everything have to be in full weeks when it comes to running?
think about it.
I ran my fastest marathon (just under 2:29) off of a 3 week taper. My 2nd fastest marathon of 2:29:00 came at the end of a 2 week taper. I think either one is sufficient if done properly. In answer to your question...
Pros of 3 week taper:
- extra time to fully recover from any injuries/illnesses
Cons of 3 week taper:
- easy to feel like you're losing fitness during the 3rd week
I did a 3 week taper for my first marathon this October and felt slow and awful on race day. I realized during the week before the race that I had tapered too soon, but at that point I obviously couldn't do anything about it. That said, I know from experience at shorter distances that I need consistent work. Listen to your body and past experiences. If you have a bunch of nagging pains and don't need consistent aerobic work, maybe take 3 weeks. If you feel good though and don't like down time, do 2 weeks. The 3 week taper was tough for me mentally, as well. I felt like I wasn't training anymore and by the time the marathon came I barely cared. Needless to say, my race sucked. I hope yours goes better.
Im doing about a two week taper, i tried three weeks for my marathon earlier this year and by the time race day came i felt horrible, mostly stale and like i lost all of my fitness.
and in case anyone was wondering, I know from experience that the 5 week taper does NOT work at ALL.
I would vote for a 2 week taper. Ran my best maraton off a 2 week taper last month. In other marathons I did I did 3 weeks and the result was not good. I like staying in my rhythm during a 2 week taper and I think you get rusty during a 3 week taper.
I set the taper up like this. Week 1 is my normal recovery week that I did every month during the training cycle and then the week of the race is less than that. For me my mileage was around 50-60 during marathon training, week 1 was about about 32 or race week was about 20 pre race.
3 weeks is a long time for a taper, have you tapered for a half at all, what did you do?
i like Pfitz's views on the subject but in the end am usually just cutting my mileage by about 20% starting 10 days out...otherwise i feel stale..
Two weeks tops. Even 10 days is better.
Rationale? Well have you ever been right in the thick of marathon training and then been forced to take a week off due to a minor injury or something? How do you feel when you resume training.
I've had this happen to me a couple of times and remember the feeling. You feel so strong resuming training. I remember feeling that I was damn near ready to run my marathon maybe the 2nd day back after the layoff. Once, after another distastrous marathon (preceded by a 3 week taper), this realization came to me. So for the next marathon, I cut my marathon taper back drastically and saw improvement (and much more consistency) in my marathon times. Was this the sole cause of the improvement? No but it clearly helped.