Tapering: Make Sure To Relax a Week Out

All the hard work is done. Time to take it easy!

Written by: Linzay Logan

The London and Boston Marathons are only days away and you have been training for months. Make sure you take this last week to rest and recover to make sure you run your best race come the big day.

You should have run your last long run about three weeks before race day to begin your taper, but the final week before the big event is when you really need to focus on tapering. Here are some tips to stick to when you’re a week out to make sure you are fully recovered and ready for race day:

1. Cut down mileage down by 50 to 75 percent. Give your legs a break to rest and recover.

2. Skip weight or strength training. You don’t want to be hobbling around come race day because you did too many squats the week before.

3. Sleep. Try to get in at least eight hours a night.

4. Eat well-balanced meals. Now is the time to really focus on your carb, protein, fat ratio and skip the processed junk food.

5. Hydrate. Keep a water bottle at your desk to remind you to keep on sipping water throughout the day.

6. Try not to stress. You have trained and prepared as much as you can. Worrying about if you should have done that extra mile a few weeks ago is not going to help now.

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Linzay Logan is the copy editor for Competitor magazine and cares about punctuation probably a little too much. She particularly loves to avoid commas as well as add exclamation points whenever she can get away with it! She also loves to run marathons and half-marathons—probably a little too much. Don’t let her small size fool you; she’ll still try to outrun you anytime. Even though chances are she probably can’t. Have a question or comment for Linzay? Email her at llogan@competitorgroup.com