The marathon season starts in a couple of weeks, but in this blog, I’m looking ahead to the final training period before your race: the taper period. What’s the purpose of tapering? And how should you tackle it?

What is Tapering?

Tapering is the period just before your goal date. Depending on the type of goal and your fitness, this taper period can last from a few days to two to three weeks. Literally, it means ‘narrowing down'. We’ve all worn tapered leg jeans at some point.

When used in sports science, it refers to the reduction of training volume as you approach your goal. Your training hours are reduced to start the race with the freshest possible legs. I specifically talk about training volume, not frequency or intensity. Those last two should be maintained. So, tapering doesn’t mean resting. The risk of detraining, or loss of fitness, is too great when resting. And losing fitness just before the race isn’t high on our list.

We are looking for the ideal intersection where you start fresh without losing fitness. Mental challenges are also part of this.

What Does the Ideal Taper Period Look Like?

Science has done a lot of research on this. Every endurance sport uses a taper period, but depending on the sport, the ideal taper may differ in strategy. Of course, we are particularly interested in running—I base this on research by Bosquet et al. (2007).

• Condition 1: The taper period must be linear.

  Suppose you taper over three weeks towards the marathon; it shouldn’t be a calm week followed by a longer week and then a very calm week. Overall, you would still have tapered, but not linearly. Science agrees that it must be linear.

• Condition 2: The taper period must be progressive.

  You must increasingly reduce volume compared to the volume of your last normal training week. For example: the first week you do -20%, the next -40%. Not two weeks at -30%.

• Condition 3: Overload before the start of the taper.

  Before the taper starts, controlled overloading is necessary so that supercompensation can occur.

• Condition 4: The taper lasts 8 to 14 days.

  It can even be less than 7 days, but if you taper longer than 2 weeks, we see negative effects on fitness. The better the athlete's form or the greater the talent, the shorter the taper can be. For elites, one week of tapering is enough. We at Trenara don’t look at that.

• Condition 5: During the taper, continue to apply intensive stimuli.

  Yes, even though intervals or tempo blocks are tough, you need them during that taper period. Since the efforts are shorter, you'll recover from them more quickly. All to prevent any loss of fitness.

When these five conditions are met, we talk about an expected performance increase of 0.5 to 6% compared to not tapering. In other words: it pays to taper.

The Ideal Taper Applied in Trenara.

I have tried to apply the above items as well as possible in my Trenara schedules. The longer the distance, the longer the taper. The ‘overload’ is the ultimate simulation training. And of course, all our taper periods are linear and progressive.

The longer your goal distance and the more often you train, the better the taper is visible in your stats that you see as a subscriber. With shorter distances and fewer training days, I don’t have as many parameters to adjust.

Tapering: Also a Mental Challenge.

Sports science proves that tapering has a positive effect on our performance. However, it is also a mental challenge: you are allowed to do less while perhaps facing one of the biggest sporting challenges. Surely you should train a lot for that? It’s a struggle that not everyone likes. What we also see in the helpdesk: fewer training hours means more time to worry. During the taper period, we receive more questions, doubt creeps in.

Let it be reassuring: when I was a coach at the World Championships and European Championships in athletics in 2022, I saw that some of the top athletes in Belgian athletics also experienced this. If you know why you 'must' taper and accept that there might be some pre-race stress involved, it becomes easier to handle.

Conclusion

The taper period now has no more secrets for you, so to speak. Tapering is necessary to optimize performance. There are scientifically proven 'best practices' that I apply in the training plans. But just because it is good for your performance doesn't mean it feels good. That's why I find the addition about the mental challenges of the taper period equally important!