Taper Interrupted
by Mitch Gold
Most of us have
worked hard during the early part the season building our base
and developing strength. The preseason training races are behind
us, and only the most important "A" races remain. How
you approach these races can mean the difference between feeling
flat as pancake or popping off a PR. There's been a lot of discussion
lately on how to best taper for your most important race, so
I thought I’d introduce the "Taper Interrupted". This
ain’t your mother’s taper so read it with an open mind. I'm not
saying it's for everybody, so make sure you test it out in training
(actually, you probably already have and don't even know it).
Have you ever finished a big block of training and felt stronger
than ever? Have you ever felt sluggish and tired at one of your
most important races? Maybe it’s not your training. Maybe you’re
just sending your body the wrong message. It might just be time
to take a closer look at your taper.
My interest in
tapering developed a few season ago at the Eagleman 1/2 Ironman.
This was purely a training race. It was at the end of a big three
week block of training and my intent was to go into the race
tired. I really just wanted to test my nutrition plan for an
upcoming Ironman. Just to make sure I didn't treat this as a
normal race, I rode over 80 miles the day before. To my surprise
I felt strong on the bike and even stronger on the run. I went
4:07 for a new personal best. Huh? How did that happen? Other
races during that season where I reduced the volume, rested and
tapered, I was flat. I continued to notice this trend over and
over.
Incidentally,
one of the reasons I think it's so important to keep a log is
to be able to look back at your training and figure out how your
body responds to various protocols. When you have one of those
days when you feel strong, it's important to have some data to
analyze and try and figure out why.
It was about this
time I started holding my annual Kona Kamp. Nothing more than
a way to trick my friends into training big volume with me as
I prepared for Ironman Hawaii. What was most notable about this
10 day epic style training was the way people were able to perform
on the last day, which was usually the infamous Swami ride in
Encinitas followed by a 20 mile run. For those of you not familiar
with Swami's, it's a 90 mile ride with the likes of Jurgan Zack
and Norm Stadler. I typically rate this ride by how thick the
snot is from my nose to my handlebars. It’s usually thick and
it’s usually fast to say the least. So to schedule this violent
ride at the end of 9 days of hard training is a bit questionable.
But, once again, going against conventional wisdom, my body seemed
to say “ok, I’m ready! We’ve been doing this for the last 10
days.” and so the taper interrupted theory was born.This
year, convinced I was on to something I decided to test my theory
at St Croix.
Four weeks out from IM Brazil, I figured I could gain a lot of
confidence by having a breakthrough race. I didn’t want to sacrifice
any training for IMB, so I decided to make St Croix a serious
training camp and push my theory to the limit. Details from the
race are here,
but in a nutshell the total for the 5 days before the race were:
Bike 14 hrs, Run 6 hrs, Swim 10k. This included a 90 minute run
the day before the race and 112 miles three days before the race.
I Felt strong the entire race and had the fastest run split in
my ag by over 3 minutes.
Why does it
work? It’s all about Consistency! I believe the body adapts
and it adapts quickly. After several weeks of any particular
training (in this case rather high volume training), you’ll
physically and mentally adapt to the workload. Even though
you might feel a little tired, once you start a session and
get warmed up, you feel good. This of course assumes you’re
training in the right training zones. Most of my training is
done at IM race effort, which isn’t really that hard. So why
disturb the rhythm of the training. Keep it going...right up
to the race.
We’ve all been
told that in order to race well you have to taper. But not everyone
trains the same way so why should everyone taper the same way?
I really struggled for a while trying to figure out why all my
training races were significantly better than my training races,
but ultimately I figured out that when I rest or reduce my volume
I feel tired and sluggish, and the more I train, the better I
feel. I understand the importance of recovery and getting rest
throughout the training cycle, but I make sure my rest is scheduled
well in advance of hard workouts or races. As a hard training
session or race approaches I build my volume to get ready. It's
very race specific training and prepares you for what lies ahead.
Ironman is just
another training day and nothing magical is going to happen just
because it’s race day. I’ve noticed that many people think that
something special is going to happen. I recommend you
go into your next race just as you would go into a big training
session, the results might just surprise you too.
Mitch is a CpC
Coach and can be reached at mitch@counterpartcoaching.com
|
|
|
All
content © Copyright Counterpart Coaching Unless
Otherwise Noted.