A taper is the stretch before a race when you deliberately run less. The hard training is done. Now the job is to get rid of the tiredness you have built up without losing the fitness underneath it. Get it right and you start the race feeling sharper than you have in months. Get it wrong and you either arrive tired or arrive flat.
Why tapering works
Training does two things at once. It builds fitness, and it builds fatigue. Fitness takes weeks to build and weeks to fade. Fatigue clears in days. A taper uses that gap: you cut the load enough for the fatigue to drain away, but not for so long that the fitness starts to slip.
That is why a taper is not rest. You still run most days, and you still run some of it fast. You just run less.
What the evidence says
The best known review is a 2007 meta-analysis by Bosquet and colleagues, which pulled together the published taper studies. The best results came from a taper of about two weeks, cutting training volume by roughly 40 to 60%, while keeping the intensity up and keeping the number of sessions about the same.
That is a useful guide, not a law. The studies covered several sports and race lengths. For the marathon, a taper of two to three weeks is standard practice, because the training load before it is so much bigger. For shorter races, less is needed.
The pattern that matters: cut the volume, keep the intensity, keep the routine.
How long to taper, by distance
These are the taper lengths and volumes Run-R uses when it builds a plan. Volume is shown as a share of your biggest training week.
| Race | Taper length | Weekly volume |
|---|---|---|
| 5K | 1 week | About 60% |
| 10K | About 10 days | About 85%, then 60% |
| Half marathon | 2 weeks | About 70%, then 50% |
| Marathon | 3 weeks | About 78%, 60%, then 40% |
For a 5K or 10K, the race itself is short, so you do not carry much damage into it and you do not need long to freshen up. A week or so with less running and one short, sharp session is enough. The marathon taper follows Pfitzinger's three weeks; race week, not counting the race, is the lightest.
For the half, the drop is steeper in the final week. For the marathon, the cut is gradual over three weeks, with the final week (which includes the race) the lightest by far. Your last long run is usually about three weeks out. The long run guide covers how to build up to it.
Keep some intensity
This is the part people get wrong most often. When volume drops, the instinct is to make everything easy. But if you stop running fast for two or three weeks, you can feel sluggish on race day.
Keep the hard sessions, just shorter. If you normally run 5x1000 m at interval pace, run 3x1000 m. If your threshold session is 30 minutes of cruise intervals, make it 15 to 20 minutes. Add a few short strides (relaxed 15 to 20 second pick-ups) at the end of some easy runs. Marathon runners should keep touching goal pace, so it feels familiar.
If you are not sure what your paces should be, the training paces page explains how they come from a recent race time.
Marathon race week, day by day
Here is a typical race week for a Sunday marathon. It assumes you run five or so days a week. If you run fewer, drop the optional runs.
| Day | Session |
|---|---|
| Monday | Rest |
| Tuesday | Easy 30 to 40 min with 2 to 3 km at marathon pace |
| Wednesday | Easy 30 min |
| Thursday | Easy 20 to 30 min with a few strides, or rest |
| Friday | Rest |
| Saturday | Shake-out 15 to 20 min very easy, 3 or 4 strides |
| Sunday | Race |
The Tuesday run is your last proper reminder of race pace. It should feel controlled and smooth. The Saturday shake-out is just to loosen up; plenty of people skip it and race fine.
Use the spare time and energy for the boring jobs: lay out your kit, check the start time and travel, pin your number, plan your fuel. The race pacing guide covers how to set your goal pace and what to eat on the morning.
Carb loading, kept simple
Your muscles store carbohydrate as glycogen, and a marathon can use up most of it. Eating more carbohydrate in the day or two before helps top those stores up. It matters most for the marathon. For a half it can help a little. For a 5K or 10K, normal eating is fine.
The commonly cited target for a marathon is about 7 to 10 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight per day, for one to two days before the race. For a 70 kg runner that is roughly 490 to 700 g a day, which is a lot more than most people normally eat.
How to make it work:
- Get the extra from simple, familiar carbs: rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, cereal, bagels, fruit juice.
- Swap some fat and fibre for carbohydrate rather than just eating more of everything. Lots of fibre the day before can upset your stomach on the run.
- Spread it over the day rather than one huge pasta dinner.
- Expect to weigh a little more. Glycogen is stored with water, so this is normal and useful.
If you have a medical condition such as diabetes, check with your GP or a dietitian before changing how you eat.
Taper nerves
Most people feel odd during a taper. Legs feel heavy, small aches appear from nowhere, sleep goes a bit wrong, and you start to doubt your fitness. This is common enough that runners have names for it. It usually passes once the race starts.
A few things help:
- Remind yourself that the fitness is already built. Nothing you do this week will add to it.
- Expect phantom niggles. A twinge that comes and goes and does not change how you run is usually nothing. Sharp pain, or pain that makes you limp, is different: get it checked by a GP or physio.
- Plenty of people sleep badly the night before a race and still run well. Sleep well earlier in the week and one bad night matters less.
The mistakes that cost people
The taper is not the time to fix anything. Anything new is a risk on race day.
- Cramming. A missed session or a bad long run makes people try to squeeze in one more big week. It will not make you fitter by race day, it will just make you tired.
- Cutting everything to zero. Stopping running altogether, or making every run slow, often leaves people feeling flat.
- New kit. New shoes, new socks, new shorts. Race in things you have already run long in.
- New food. Do not try a new gel, drink or breakfast on race day. Use what you practised on your long runs.
- Extra activity. A taper week is not the week for a long walking holiday, a new gym class or a big day of DIY on your feet.
- Over-drinking. Drink to thirst in the days before. Forcing down extra water does not help and can be harmful.
Let Run-R plan the taper for you
Run-R works the taper back from your race date automatically, with the cut sizes above for each distance. Build a marathon training plan or a half marathon training plan, or start from the plan builder for any distance.