Brooklyn Half Marathoners,
You survived the toughest week of Half Marathon training. Well done. I would argue this past week is more difficult than the actual race; you did your longest long run, your fastest workout, and your highest overall weekly mileage, all without the cheering fans you’ll have in two weeks time. Now, it’s time to taper.
The taper is the most delicate and hotly debated part of training for any race—from the 100 meters to the ultra-marathon. Even professional athletes are always tweaking this finicky time to figure out how to feel both perfectly rested and perfectly sharp on race day.
What is a taper? The taper is a gradual period of decreased workload before race day. Up until the taper, the goal of training is to stress the body in order to stimulate an adaptation. Once the taper begins, the goal is to help complete adaptation, rather than stimulate any more. The taper should be a significant enough drop in work to leave you feeling fresh on race day, but gradual enough that your body keeps on working internally toward your recovery.
Athletes often make one of two mistakes at this point in training:
They emerge from the biggest week of the season tired, so decide to skip all their upcoming runs until raceday.
I know it can seem counterintuitive, but complete rest isn’t always the best way to recover. Sometimes, rather than no work, you need a different kind of work.
For instance, your speed workout this week is still a real workout, but the goal is max precision, not max effort. You’ll try to get right on Half Marathon pace and stay there, no faster. Your long run is still long, but a little shorter, and easy all the way through.
During the taper, by backing off miles only slightly (at first), you’ll help your body keep a quick metabolic rate (the rate at which your body gets everything done—healing, fueling, building) while eliminating any unnecessary physical stressors. If you stop working entirely, that rate will slow dramatically! We want to keep your engine revving.
They’re afraid they haven’t worked hard enough earlier in the season, or they’re afraid of “getting out of shape,” so they try to sneak in extra work.
It takes your body about 10 days to completely recover micro-damage after a hard workout. That means you won’t be fully repaired and rebuilt for race day from that any hard work you do after Wednesday this week. So don’t so it!
To run a perfect taper, think of this week as a “going through the motions” week. You’ll keep the same pattern, but without that extra “push” you normally give training. The speed run won’t be easy, but after that all your other runs should be!
Ok….take care of yourself, athletes. We’re proud of you for all the work you’ve put in this season. Let’s finish this off right.
LFG
Coach + Coffey
This week you will run 3-6 times, with 1-2 Speed Run(s) + 1 Long Run
These runs may be done on any days, with two caveats: 1) The Speed Run must be run earlier in the week than the Long Run, and 2) follow the hard-easy-hard principle, which means never run back-to-back hard days. Instead, separate hard (speed or long) runs with at least one easy run or rest day.
This week you’ll take a 20% step back in mileage! Look to the charts on page 7-9 of the Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Plan for help deciding exactly how much to run.
Speed Run: 3x2 miles @ Half Marathon Goal Pace w/ 2:00 rest
Method:
Run 5-20 minutes of easy warmup running.
Do 5-10 optional minutes of dynamic warmups + strides.Run 3x2 miles right at Half Marathon goal pace with 2:00 walk/jog recovery.
This is a simple one! No progression, no pace shifts. Just get on goal pace and ride it home.
If you feel terrible, don’t overthink it—you still have last week’s work unrecovered in your legs. This same pace will feel very different for most of your race. These miles replicate how you’ll feel late-race, which is exactly where you need the practice.
If you feel great, great! Stick to the pace anyway. Exercise confidence in the form of restraint.
We suggest using this last significant speed run to dry-run the race one last time: Wear your race shoes, your race outfit, and take a gel in the middle of the 2nd rep. You might even consider running this on part of the course!
5-20 minutes easy cooldown running + dynamic cooldown, just like at the start.
Have a small, sweet snack or juice within 20 minutes.
Aerobic Runs — 1-4 runs @ 3-9 miles
Find your aerobic pace on page 6 in Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Program. This wide pace range is determined by your prospective Marathon pace, and is the pace at which your system is fueled almost exclusively by aerobic metabolism. That means at this pace your energy comes from an oxygen-based system; any faster and it start to rely on chemical reactions within your muscles, which produce byproducts that are measured by lactate. The majority of your training miles should be run in this aerobic, oxygen-powered pace window. This will develop your body's reliance on oxygen-based metabolism, build out the capillary “infrastructure” for delivering oxygen-rich blood, and coax your body away from the production of leg-burning muscular byproduct.
Put a different way, at this pace your body can both recover from your hard runs and develop your endurance at the same time. Some people refer to these days as recovery runs or easy runs. We like to use the technical term: aerobic—adj, relating to, involving, or requiring free oxygen, to keep at the front of our minds that even though these miles are easy, they are just as purposeful and essential as any speed day.
Experienced runners running at least four days a week may opt for a second speed workout most weeks. However, in race week you should swap your tempo run for an easy Aerobic run (or a day off!)
Long Run — 8-10 miles at Aerobic Pace (with optional surges)
Aerobic pace aaaaalll the way.
This is the first run that will really start to feel like taper. For the last 10 weeks you’ve alternated longer, slower long runs with shorter, faster long runs. Every week, you were challenged by either speed or distance. This week, for the first time since we began, you’ll run both short and easy with no surges. What luxury.
Make it fun. Keep it light. Run with pals. End at brunch. Enjoy the day.
On optional surges: If you’re feeling sore, achy, or grumpy, throw in some informal surges—something like 6x :10. They’re not required, but you I know you know how they can snap you back into good form on days when you’re dragging. Totally optional, but do them if you need them..