Coming down from high mileage...feel horrible

Ramp it back up and do a more abrupt taper.

Didn't Bill Rodgers do something like 200 miles 2 weeks out from Boston in '75?

Tons of people out there run really fast races off of just base training...no speed work

Seriously

Might be worth it going back up ditch the intervals or reduce

I disagree. You came up with a plan with cold logic. See that plan through and then assess the results. Tapers are always a challenge (mostly mentally) and you can easily be led to change plans based on "feelings" rather than logic. Stick to the plan. You will be surprised how good you will feel after the start.

Old Walker wrote:

I disagree. You came up with a plan with cold logic. See that plan through and then assess the results. Tapers are always a challenge (mostly mentally) and you can easily be led to change plans based on "feelings" rather than logic. Stick to the plan. You will be surprised how good you will feel after the start.

This. I've seen lots of people sabotage months of good training in the final 2 weeks of taper because of taper madness. They convince themselves that a hard workout a week and a half out is a good idea and completely overdo it. Take the full taper. It's better to be slightly undertrained going into a marathon than overtrained.

I always feel like trash at first when I start tapering before a marathon, usually worse than I felt when hitting peak workouts under peak volume the weeks before. My best guess is that it's due to the lag in recovery - mentally I feel like everything should be feeling easier since I'm under less training load and workouts are reduced in difficulty but actually I've just moved past peak training load and thus maximum accumulated fatigue and it takes weeks for that to resolve (for me, usually 2-3 weeks). So now I'm not surprised when something like 3x(1T + 2min E) in Daniels' speak feels difficult during a taper when I was able to hit a workout like 5x(2T + 2min E) a couple weeks prior. I still find it a bit unsettling but I don't make too much of it, having gone through this cycle several times. Freshness always seems to come around after 2.5 - 3 weeks for me. YMMV

+1

This

I agree with what you are saying, however my concern is did I taper down too soon? My thinking was that by the third or fourth week in the 70-80's I'd be a lot fresher starting a taper as opposed to going into taper busted up. As the saying goes if you desperately NEED to taper you might have over done it.

My volume for the last 9 weeks + projected next 3 leading up to marathon are as follows:

36 + Marathon

70

90

87- Current week

74

79

88

97

86

103

100

85

I've experienced the same thing.

I talked to my coaches about it, and they gave me some of the best and most blunt advice I have ever received: 'It doesn't matter how you feel.'

Same thing here, long tapers don't seem to work particularly well for me.

you need to make your runs 30-40 seconds faster per mile than when you were doing high mileage. tapers are for getting faster not keeping same pace.

top gun maverick wrote:

you need to make your runs 30-40 seconds faster per mile than when you were doing high mileage. tapers are for getting faster not keeping same pace.

This would make sense however like I stated above I dropped mileage 6 weeks out so that what you stated would happen in the last three weeks. However I am 3 weeks in, with 3 weeks to go and the legs are still heavy and lethargic

top gun maverick wrote:

you need to make your runs 30-40 seconds faster per mile than when you were doing high mileage. tapers are for getting faster not keeping same pace.

This is the answer..

When dropping your mileage substantially, up the intensity.

I did 90, 100, 110, 80 - this week I’ll hit 50 (race next week)

Doing shorter runs at higher intensity has me feeling amazing... also make sure to get lots of sleep, walk around, and get to the gym a few times

top gun maverick wrote:

you need to make your runs 30-40 seconds faster per mile than when you were doing high mileage. tapers are for getting faster not keeping same pace.

I gotta disagree. Nothing you do in these last couple of weeks will help you in the race. But you can do damage. Just as taking the weeks totally off would be counterproductive, running faster in the last days just adds stress and you don't have time for any training effect to pay dividends. It's a taper. So taper.

Run basically the same workouts and paces you were before the taper, but reduce distances. That is, if you normally do 8x1600 on Wednesdays, do half that two weeks out, but keep the same pace you normally run. So the pace is still there but the effort is reduced because of the reduction of miles. If your long run is normally 20 miles, cut it in half as well, but don't run it harder.

If you find that you started the taper too soon, then you will be able to use that knowledge next time out. But once you committed to this plan, you should follow through. Otherwise, you don't have any idea what worked and what didn't. It's all an experiment and you have to stick to the plan or any data gained is worthless.

Good luck my friend. I expect you will find that you are more ready than you feel. Tapers can suck, but if you relax and have faith, they can be awesome.

This sounds sensible. I have no marathon experience to speak to, but find that in 'tapering' for the track (i.e. reducing mileage from 85-105 over winter and spring to 55-75 for a couple of months of racing) my legs go into mileage withdrawal and feel awful - slow, sluggish - more days than not.

Nevertheless when I do hard specific workouts or races during this period I find that I am not in fact so tired and that the lower mileage has sharpened me up somehow. I PR'ed twice at 5K and once at 10K during the period from late June to mid-August this year, despite my easy runs degenerating into ever more of an old-man-shuffle. In the month or so since the end of the season I have built my mileage back up again to 80-90 per week and feel much better day-to-day, although if I went out and raced now I'm sure I'd find myself much slower.

You won't lose any real fitness from a week or two more taper, even though the change from hard training habits may trick your body into feeling that way. Just trust the work you have done and go run a good marathon.

Quincyceltic wrote:

This summer I averaged 95 miles for 4 months dealing with the heat and humidity and now recently dropped mileage into the 70's and I feel horrible. It's been about 3 weeks since my last bigger week and while I have run a couple hard sessions I just can't seem to shake the lethargy.

I'm 3.5 weeks out from my marathon and the plan had been to drop down to the 70-80 range for the last 5 weeks and really dial in on specific workouts without the stress of high mileage. Now wondering if I should start to build back up with little to no taper (which has worked all summer setting pr's at all distances) and hope my legs come around. Thoughts??

So what sort of time you are aiming for?

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