Is it really important to taper for a marathon? In college while running 1500's and 3k's, I rarely did much of a taper, but the marathoners I am training with are telling me that a taper for the marathon is extremely important. I can see why you would want to be fresh for a 26.2 mile race, but won't you gain extra weight that makes you less efficient?
well, the more shitty marathons I run, the more important I think it is to taper enough. How 'bout that.
12k's and down not so important. Marathon, important.
I have run 4 marathons, tapered for 2 of them. My times were substantially better for the marathons in which I did not taper.
I should mention that that tapers were 3 weeks in length, decreasing the mileage by about 15% per week. The next taper I do will be shorter and smaller.
EITS wrote:
12k's and down not so important. Marathon, important.
ahh.. the dreaded 12k.
My opinion: 50% of marathoners taper too much, 30% taper too little. 20% taper just right.
Even Greg Meyer ran a 19 mile aerobic fartlek workout 10 days before his 2:09:00 Boston Marathon win and 72 miles the week of the big race. Steve Jones would run 80-90 the week before his marathons and then tapered to 40s the week of the marathon. I think that the taper should take place in the last 9 days before your race.
Tinman
There's really not much you can do in the two weeks before a marathon to improve your performance, but there is a lot you can do to make your performance worse. It is much easier to maintain fitness than it is to gain it. You can drop your mileage by 50% and still maintain your aerobic fitness. Muscle damage from a long run (2 hours plus) can still negatively affect your running weeks afterwards. So, why are there elite marathons who run 18 milers a week before there race or half-marathon races a week before their race. Simply because over time they have trained their bodies to recovery far more quickly than the average runner.
If you're a first time marathoner it's much better to err on the side of caution. Meaning, don't run anything longer than 2 hours 3-4 weeks out, don't race within 2-3 weeks, nothing but short easy runs the week of. All your training for a marathon was done months in advance. The last month leading up to a marathon should be about building confidence in the race pace and about being light and ready to race. So in that last month a couple times a week go do something at planned marathon pace plus something short and sweet to maintain the zip in your legs.