As the marathon season comes upon us, it’s important that a marathon taper is part of your training schedule. It’s one of the most overlooked components of marathon training. Most people think you need to continue to train hard leading up to the race. Marathoners think more is better, but in reality doing less will help you achieve your goal. Tapering allows your body to repair muscle fibers that have been damaged during those long runs and intervals. The body during the taper can store more glycogen that will help you finish the 26.2 mile race. It also gives you a mental break from the stress of the hard training you put in.

A marathon tapering program should start three weeks from your marathon. Week one you should drop your overall mileage and long run about 15%. So if your are running 50 miles a week before the taper, that week drop your mileage down to about 42 miles. Continue with your tempo run and or intervals at this point.

Week two you should drop your mileage and the long run another 15%. Your mileage for that week should be 35 miles if you are using the example of 50 miles. During this week and preferably 10 days away from the marathon you should do your last tempo run.

The week of the marathon you should drop another 20% of your original mileage. That means you will run half of the mileage you started out with. All of your runs should be at an easy pace and do not do anything intense the last week. The week before the marathon it’s important that you eat plenty of pasta and drink fluids as often as you can. Enjoy this week because you have trained hard to get to this point and you deserve it. Having a positive attitude and have a great support system makes the whole experience that much better. Good luck and you if you have comments about your race please post them. To learn more you can go to marathon training.

If you have any questions or topics you would like for me to talk about Email them and I will address them personally and include them in my videos. Until next time, have a Great Run. Sign up for my newsletter for more tips.
Thanks,
John
TheRunnersGuide

One of the most common questions on training for a marathon is how many weeks out from the race do you start to train. Hopefully you have been doing some running before this point, but sixteen weeks is a great time to start you specific preparation. During this time training should be specific to the 26.2 mile distance. One key run to focus on is the long run. The long run should be in your marathon training schedule once a week. Gradually working your way up to 20 miles over an eight-week period or longer, will help you to stay less injury prone. If you do not have a course measured, running a slow pace for two and half to three hours will be enough.

Another key run is a five to ten mile run close to marathon pace. You should run that workout once a week. Make sure you gradually increase the distance over a period of time. The other days are ran at an easy pace and used for recovery. I will talk about tapering for the marathon distance in my blog down the road.To learn more you can go to marathon training.

If you have any questions or topics you would like for me to talk about Email them and I will address them personally and include them in my videos. Until next time, have a Great Run. Sign up for my newsletter for more tips.
Thanks,
John
TheRunnersGuide

Sorry about not posting for the last few weeks. I have had technical difficulties with the website. Everything is now up and running. I will give you a quick summary for the last four weeks. My mileage has increased from 75, 80, 80 and this week 85 miles. My first week I was in Florida for vacation and ran easy. July fourth weekend I ran a five mile race in 27:11 and felt solid. The next two weeks I ran a 400 meter workouts on the track. I did between 16 to 18 in 74 seconds with a one minute break. This workout is supposed to help me neuromuscular to get me running faster. I have not run that pace in well over a year now. The other important run is an anaerobic threshold run where I run 6 miles at 5:30 pace. This run is going to help with strength and will help my body with dealing with lactic acid.

I want to continue with the use of a Heart Monitor. When you do easy base mileage you want to have your HR between 135 to 150. This pace is used normally a lot at the beginning of the season. As the season progresses once a week you want to do a medium run which is between 150 to 165. At roughly 167 beats per minute is where your anaerobic threshold is and you should run 4 to 6 miles at this pace. Finally, when your above 170 bpm you are doing shorter runs at faster pace with a rest in between. For example when I do mile repeats I run them at 5:10 pace with a two minute recovery in between. I thing to remember when using a HM during the hot summer you HR will be higher so you have to make some changes because of the heat.
If you have any questions about running you can post them on my Running Forum or Email me. Until next time, have a Great Run.