Monday, March 05, 2012

the marathon taper

A friend this morning shared with me her rule of thumb for a successful marathon taper.  It's very simple: 75% of your weekly mileage 3 weeks out, 50% 2 weeks out and 25% the week of.  Another rule of thumb is to never run (in one day) more miles than the number of days you have left before the race.  So if your race is on a Sunday, your long run the weekend before would not be more than 7 or 8, depending on the day you run.  I like simple and these rules of thumb work for me. 

What about you?  Do you have a rule of thumb that you live by when it comes to a taper before your race? 

2 comments:

Rachael said...

New follower here. This is great. I have a 2 year old, I'm pregnant with my second child and I'm training for a half marathon that take place in May. I'll be about 20weeks at that point. My training was going great until the early pregnancy fatigue set in. I'm just getting out of that now, so hopefully, I'll be able to run or run/walk the half marathon. Also, feel free to follow my blog: http://www.theroundnotebook.blogspot.com/

Kelly(M&M) said...

Oh, the dreaded taper. :-) The hardest part for me is the mental part of it. I am boring and just follow whatever plan I am using. Good luck!!