I have a hilly half marathon next Sunday that I am planning on pb'ing.
Thoughts on taper over the coming week? Was planning on maintaining frequency of runs (6/wk), reducing volume (35%) and reducing speed work to 400m reps.
Input welcome, cheers
Taper should have started 1 to 2 weeks pack if this is a really a goal race. A 20% reduction each week over 3 weeks, so the week of the race you are doing about 35-40% over the same time period (e.g. Monay to friday/saturday).
Frequency is good to keep up but it helps to add a rest day or 2 unless you think the legs are very well rested. It tends to be good to have a rest day 2 days before the race, then a short shake out run the day before.
No speed work at all. Keep the runs at your normal easy pace, but it can be good to add some miles at intended goal pace, up to 10 seconds a mile faster for a mile or 2, or some fartlek style 1 or2 minutes at goal pace with slow acceleration and deceleration. The distance of each run should reduce a bit, so Monday likely the longest run until race day.
There are no fitness or physiological gain you can make, and doing anything like a workout will just lower your performance as your muscles wont recover. The training volume that your did 3-6 months back is where the race day performance will have been defined. During taper you can't do anything to gain performance, but you want your running to try to mitigate any negative effects of reduced training. The main thing is muscles can get stiff and flat as muscle fibers recover, but you need that recovery. So frequent shorter runs that often include race pace sections avoid overly stiff legs on race day. The goal of anything fast is just to make sure your legs can turnover smoothly at goal pace.
