London Winner, Mike Gratton on Tapering for a Marathon
The training is done, the last preparation race completed.
It’s marathon taper time.
Probably the most nerve wracking of all times, as you step off the hard training regime and are asked to go easy for a couple of weeks. You’re just not used to it!
It’s a time of doubts as well as anticipation. It’s a time when more training won’t have a positive impact on performance. It could have a negative impact.
Getting the taper right is tricky. Too much and your body doesn’t go through the regenerative phase that you get from rest. Too little and you may start to feel sluggish.
Why taper
Most of what we do in the taper period is to look to prevent any negatives, rather than get fitter.
With that in mind, there are three key reasons to taper, particularly for a marathon.
Firstly, your body will have suffered a lot of micro damage to muscles during the harder and faster stages of running as the race gets closer. For this micro trauma to repair a significant amount of rest is required.
It is recognised that most types of training performed in the last weeks of a training block, threshold runs, marathon pace runs, interval training, take from 10 days to 2 weeks to be felt as an improvement in your fitness. There is little point in performing these hard sessions after, let’s say 10 days out.
Endurance races, from half marathon upwards depend a lot on you having a full store of carbohydrate, in the form of glycogen in your blood and liver. So, by cutting back on training load and increasing carbohydrate loading in the last 48hrs, it will help you start with a good store of glycogen.
How long does a training session take to have effect
This depends greatly on the age and experience of a runner. Generally however, it can be considered that long runs to develop aerobic capacity will take up to 6 weeks to have an effect, hard intervals, hills and threshold running 10 to 14 days, depending on actual intensity. Short sprints with full recovery, like 150 or 200m with a walk/jog recovery of several minutes, can have a positive effect in a couple of days.
| Training type | When you will see fitness gains |
| Fast speed work with full recovery | 2-3 days |
| Hill Work | 10 to 14 days |
| Interval Training | 10-14 days |
| Threshold Running (20 mins) | 7-10 days |
| Long Runs (several to build aerobic capacity) | 6 to 8 weeks |
How much to taper
How much to taper depends on what your regular training looks like. If you regularly run 100-mile weeks, you’ll probably do a lot more than a runner on 30 miles a week.
A high weekly mileage runner will be used to very regular bouts of training, probably twice a day, so a last week mileage of 50% of usual training loads is probably tolerable and gives then their running ‘fix.
However, 50% of a 30 miles per week means they will only be looking at 15 miles in the last week. This may be enough, but for some, it may lead to sluggishness creeping in, and they may prefer to do a little more.
Like most things running training related, it depends entirely on the individual.
I always suggest bringing down the miles but retaining some short, sharp running, to keep the mitochondria firing. Just enough to get a stimulus but not to cause lasting fatigue. As mentioned before, short sharp efforts with a complete recovery between, can have a training effect I just a few days, due to the neuromuscular effect of recruiting a greater number of muscle fibres.
I liked to do a race the weekend before a marathon – I ran a 10-mile race 7 days before taking third in the AAA marathon champs in 1981 in a PB 2.16. I also ran a long leg in the Southern 12 stage relay over approx. 5.3 miles, the week before winning London in 1983.
I have published this in my training diary excerpt from 1983 but to pull out the taper section, my last 8 days before winning London where:
- Sat Southern Relay ( 5 miles)
- Sun 10 miles
- Mon 14 miles (start of carbo bleed-out diet),
- Tue 15×200 strides
- Wed 9 miles steady (start of carbo loading)
- Thu 7 miles steady xc,
- Fri 5 miles easy, Sat 4 miles easy.
- Sun London Marathon 2.09.43.
I have a number of runners in marathons, all have been on good mileage. Some of the athletes are aiming for 2.20 performances, some benchmark times, such as 2.45, 3hrs and 4hrs.
In general, they are/will be doing:
Athletes with sub-3 hr targets
- Sun 12 miles steady
- Mon 8 miles steady
- Tue am 5 miles easy
- pm 5 miles steady
- Wed 10×200 strides
- Thu 5 miles easy, Fri Rest
- Sat 30 mins easy
- Sun Marathon.
Athletes looking at 4hrs or more will do:
- Sun 8 miles
- Mon Rest
- Tue 5 miles easy
- Wed 10×200 strides
- Thu 3 miles easy
- Fri Rest
- Sat 30mins easy
- Sun Marathon.
Between these two there’s a big group and it will depend on their experience and the level of training the athlete achieved prior to taper that will decide how much to training in the last week.
