Fordyce: tapering vital for big day
It was cold and bright on Tuesday morning in Johannesburg as I drove to meet a few running friends for a gentle 10km run. The morning was very autumnal and hinted at the coming winter. I drove past large groups of brightly coloured runners streaming along chatting excitedly.
I was overcome with “fomo” (fear of missing out) because I understood the Herculean task those runners were tackling. They were all running their long 60km training run in preparation for the Comrades Marathon. I had stumbled upon the very popular Rand Athletic Club 60km. but it didn’t really matter which organised club run it was because I knew too that all over South Africa and around the world, sometime this week, or last, thousands of runners were completing the same important Comrades training session. I tried to block the feeling of envy but around the next bend the sight of a table surrounded by an expectant crowd of helpers broke my resistance.
I was not envious of the effort and pain these runners would still have to endure (when I saw them they had completed only a third of their journey) I was jealous of where they stood in the long exciting journey to running our great race. The long run is the pinnacle. It is the summit of Everest. Now the descent to race day can start. The descent will still be long, tough and perilous but the end of all those months of training and dreaming is in sight and the pre-race taper is just around the corner. I believe there should be perhaps one more long run in the region of 30 to 40km but the last of the ultra-long training runs should now be behind runners. The taper is something to be eagerly anticipated.
I know there are coaches and runners who do not like the concept of tapering. Some of these runners will train very hard right up to the penultimate day. I have heard of some running as far as 50km in the last week before the race. I only have two responses; the first is that a conservative and protracted training taper to race day worked extremely well for me; the second is that I believe the only way to cope with the 90 brutal kilometres of the down Comrades is with fresh strong legs that have no traces of muscle damage. Only rest can heal the muscle damage from weeks of hard training. Just contemplating coping with the bone-jarring descent of Field’s Hill with muscle damaged legs makes me wince. I recommend maintaining a hard training programme for about two more weeks. At the end of the second week it would be appropriate to run that last 30 to 40km training run I mentioned earlier. Then I believe it will be time to start a three-week taper to race day. Each runner will know how much to cut back, but as an example I used to slash about a quarter or a third of my training load off each week. I used to run 10 weeks of 160 to 200km a week, then I would cut that to 120km for the first week of my taper and then run 80km in the second week. At the same time I sharpened up by running some faster quality, track, hill and time trial sessions. This helped to bring me to a racing peak on race day.
But it is the last week before race day where I believe tapering is so important. I don’t believe it is possible to get too much rest, especially when running the down run with its brutal descents.
My last week’s training programme has remained unchanged for over a decade: Monday 10km – gentle pace Tuesday 8km – gentle pace Wednesday 5km – gentle pace Thursday REST Friday REST Saturday REST Sunday 90km flat out! (3.35 to 3.40 per km)
The long three-week taper with a very easy last week always left me champing at the bit and excited to race hard. It worked for me. I’m convinced it would work well for most runners.