Cut out all racing… during the last month of your training: you will need certainly three weeks to put the finishing touches to your stamina and reserve energy. When you consider what a vast amount of work you have already gone through, you will admit that a fortnight or so longer is a relatively trifling matter. Endeavour to keep all your spare time fully occupied with reading, writing; anything that will keep you still, anything to divert your mind from harping on the forthcoming event.
Newton was certainly ahead of his time in recommending rest before a big race. There are numerous tales in athletic history of runners being prevented from training by illness and injury and then returning with a breakthrough performance. Prior to the 1950 European Games, Emil Zatopek trained so hard that he made himself ill and spent 2 weeks in hospital. He was released two days before the 10000m race which he won and lapped all the other runners in the process. He also went on to win the 5000m by 23 seconds. Carlos Lopez of Portugal was prevented from training by an accident for ten days leading up to his victory in the 1984 Olympic marathon.
Carlos Lopes
There have since been various scientific studies carried out on the best way to taper for various events. After a period of intense marathon training, the muscles in the legs can suffer damage at a cellular level that can take up to 4 weeks to repair. Most marathon training programmes advocate a taper of two weeks. I’d suggest that three weeks is a minimum taper for a marathon.
Very few programmes advocate tapering for shorter road races eg 5 or 10k. However, various studies have shown improved performance when mileage is reduced significantly (by up to 70%) provided the remaining mileage is carried out at a brisk pace. Measurable performance gains were demonstrated in a study in 1994 by Houmard and others where average daily mileage was reduced from 10km to 1.5km and the training was based on 400m repeats at 5k race pace.
So, despite the evidence that a dramatic taper will improve your performance, it is often overlooked. Probably the greatest reason for this is a mental one. Having spent weeks training for an event, getting into the habit of regular training and knowing that training will improve performance, it is sorely tempting to cram in as much training as possible right up to the last minute before the event in the belief that it will improve performance. As in Law 12, it is necessary to have the mental strength to rest and recuperate prior to the event to achieve maximum performance.
Train Smart!