Taper Time!

It is now 14 days until the London Marathon which means TAPER TIME!! All of the long runs are done. All of the hard repetition sessions are done. All of the weeks of three figure mileage are done. It's time to freshen up and concentrate on staying healthy.

There isn't anything else I can do now to improve my fitness. All of the work has been done over the previous 8 weeks. Well actually I look at it a little differently nowadays. I have trained for ten marathons previously and been running for 18 years now with many weeks over 100 miles going as high as 136. Any fitness I have hasn't just come from the last 8 weeks, it's an accumulation of years of work. I hit probably my best ever period of form in the early part of this winter off an enforced period of much reduced mileage and have realised that I have so many miles in my 'bank' that it's no longer optimum for me to do as many miles as my body can handle. I think a mistake I made in my last 2 or 3 build ups was taking the 'more is better' approach which brought me great results in my early years. So I have dropped down to a slightly lower mileage, withe the viewpoint that now is the time to 'cash in' on what I have in my 'bank'.

Looking back over the previous 8 weeks, everything has gone as I would have hoped. I haven't had any stonkingly good races but that is normal for me if I am on schedule, my last race was my half marathon which only fell 5 weeks into my build up and 66:54 compared well to the 67:24 I ran on the same course en route to my marathon PB. If all goes well, I should feel three weeks out that I am coming into peak form. And the signs in my final week of hard training are that I am.

Today's 17 mile run concluded a 100 mile training week. There were two key workouts this week. 12x600m with a 200m jog recovery on Tuesday and 6 x 1 mile with 2mins rest on Saturday. The target for Tuesday's session was to run 1:41s and my average time was 1:41 despite feeling pretty jaded from a hard weekend last week. Saturday was a repeat of the same session I did the previous weekend where I clocked 4:52, 4:42, 4:40, 4:39, 4:42, 4:52. I felt this was a good session but wanted to be more consistent across the six reps. I panicked when the first rep this week was ran in 4:35. But this was followed with 4:36, 4:34, 4:33, 4:37, 4:42. I'd probably rank this as the best training session I've ever done. I've done the exact same session in the run up to 10k personal bests and not hit those sort of times.

The session leaves me very confident coming into the marathon but it's at this point you question whether you've got your training right as other people start telling you what they have been doing. There are many ways to train for a marathon and I have great trust in my coach and the training plan we set out which was based on past experiences (positive and negative!) and has gone exactly to script. And I guess that's what I have to look at and concentrate on myself and my own preparations and not get concerned about other people's preparations and how they may or may not differ from mine.

I briefly mentioned at the start of this update about 'staying healthy'. This means several things.

1. NOT overdoing the training over the final two weeks. The daily mileage over the next three days will probably be fairly similar to what I've been doing but there wont be any gruelling repetition sessions. Instead there will be a couple of 'half' sessions where I reduce the volume of reps and increase the recovery but dont run any quicker - the idea being to get some pace in the legs but come away feeling like I've done next to nothing and not take anything away.

2. NOT easing off too much! You need to strike a balance between not overdoing it and not doing too little. a 30% reduction in mileage this week is probably about right and a little bit more on marathon race week. For me, my last two weeks have been 109 and 100 miles. I intend my final two weeks to be approx 70 and 60 (NOTE! this figure includes the marathon!)

3. Eating right! As you drop your mileage, theres a danger you may put on weight. It's easy especially on race week to take the carbohydrate loading too far and over-eat. I have done this before and the result is inevitable. Cut out the crap from your diet and eat regular meals but reduce portion size a touch! You dont need a bowl of pasta the size of your head!

4. Avoid illness and injury! As you back off the mileage, you are prone to infections and injury niggles as the body starts to wonder what's going on! Avoid people who are ill, don't eat anything out of the ordinary especially a new restaurant! Eat well (see no.3 above) and make sure you get a regular sleep of 8-10 hours. A massage on race week may be useful, but don't get it too close as it's good not to be too supple! 4 days out is about right I find.

5. Avoid booze! I like a drink as much as the next man but big nights out in the final two weeks are a no-no. If you normally have a couple of beers 3 times a week, that's fine to keep doing that.

6. Don't knacker yourself out! Lifestyle choices on race week are important. Don't get stressed leaving everything to the last minute at work and doing an 11 hour shift! Try to avoid doing anything other than resting, eating/hydrating and a short jog or 2 in the final two days. The worst thing you can do is go sightseeing or shopping in the final two days and walk 4 to 5 miles in doing so. I have made this mistake before!

7. Stay well hydrated! Probably the most important of the lot - especially on race week. The hydration process starts from 7 days before. If you are insufficiently hydrated 24 hours before the race you will not be correctly hydrated on race day! Have a large bottle of water with you at all times on race week. In the final two days, add a carboloading mix such as PSP22 so you can carboload without eating too much.

To anybody taking part in the marathon, good luck! Next weeks blog will have some further tips for race day itself.