I'm doing Pfitz 18/70 plan and have three weeks to go (21 days). Today I took my first good look at the taper mesocyle. It seem excessive tapering to me. For the last three weeks the miles drop to 55, 43, and 28. There is one race and one VO2 max workouts for the last three weeks.
I'm not a workout hero and I understand that there is not much one can do at this point to improve marathon fitness, but these three weeks seem excessive. Thoughts?
You should try it. It works. What do you have to lose?
jbatl wrote:
You should try it. It works. What do you have to lose?
A bad marathon?
I did this program a couple years back and the taper worked great for me. YMMV, of course. I got to the start line fresh, rested & raring to go.
Thanks for the responses. I will try it and we'll see how well it works.
I think i'm going to sprinkle in marathon pace at the end of a couple of the runs to get used to the pace. Nothing very long or strenuous, and not within 10 days of the race.
Another vote for the three week taper. Got me very worried about being stale but with a few 800s and a couple of 400s the 10 days out all went well for me.
Also gave me a chance to really dial in what my marathon pace felt like (had a few miles measured on my loops so would throw in 1-2 MP miles during taper runs).
First few miles of the marathon I felt like I was walking.
The taper is one of the hardest things about marathon training. This does sound like a pretty long taper, but I would trust in the plan and trust in your training. For what it is worth, the plan that I have followed does not call for much of a taper at all in terms of intensity, but does have a bit of a taper with respect to mileage. Still, I was feeling really beat up at the end of my training cycle, so over the last three weeks, I built in a more substantial intensity taper as well as the mileage taper, and it was definitely the right call. I want from being right on the edge of burning out to having a great race.
In short, listen to your body, but don't be afraid of the taper.