Question about taper strategy for HIM

MattAaronson

Last year I did 3 HIM races in an 8 week period with 4 weeks in between each.

The first one I did the recommended taper in the HIM plan. The second one I "trained through" until 5 days before the race when I "crash tapered" – literally just turned it off.

The second race was a better race, performance-wise. This year I have Kansas on June 10 and Racine on July 17. I feel a little unprepared for KS due to more business travel than expected over the past months. What are the team's thoughts on taking the "training through" approach to Kansas?

My thought is that people respond differently to tapering and if the "crash taper" works well for me I should continue. Also it keeps me going strong and building for Racine in over a month.

Both of these are "A" races I guess...I'd like to do well in both of them. I'll probably go for a PB at Racine with the flat course although if it's super hot that won't happen. Kansas has a boatload of Vegas slots and I have an outside chance at one (very "outside", however).

Thoughts?

Paul Hough

Matt - I think the proper taper length depends on the individual; but really, one week should be sufficient for just about everyone. I tend to evaluate races based on the length of the run which is the hardest part on the body. In decades of running, I would never have tapered more than a few days for a 1/2 marathon. So if 5 days is working don't change it.

Al Truscott

I agree, five days sounds like enough for KS. But I don't know about totally shutting it down for five days. You still need to do something every day, and throw in about 5-10 minutes worth of high energy sprint like stuff into each workout. Otherwise, your body will start to go into deep recovery mode, and feel listless at the race.

William Jenks

FWIW, I think the taper depends on you you feel about what you've been doing in the weeks before. I'm racing KS, too. If we call race week #20, I was training at an "unsustainable" rate during weeks (about) 13-17. By that, I mean the number of hours and level of fatigue was getting to me, and at the end of week 17, I would not have been able to put in a good race performance. (A lot of this is because I was working the swim a lot more than on the normal schedule...but it made my HIM training feel like IM training in terms of exhaustion.)

I made week 18 a "normal" EN week, and this week (#19) I am following the plan pretty much (one or two extra swims), but it has a pretty significant taper. Race week on all the EN plans is pretty easy stuff. Significant taper. I really feel like I have to do this so that I recover from the haze that I had worked myself into. :-)

That said, last year, I did a "B" HIM race last year at a point early in my IM cycle where I wasn't exhausted and things weren't crazy long yet. My "taper" was no long run and a couple easy days before...and I had a great race. But I was starting from a different place.

So I agree that it's individual...but I also assert that it depends on how you're feeling going in!

(And I agree with Paul to this extent...if I'm in a run-only cycle, then just a few days is fine for a half mary!)

For you in this case, being "undertrained" and it not being the A race, I agree...go for it with minimal taper!

MattAaronson

Thanks for the input. I actually pulled back my long run today due to rain and other factors, so I'm 'tapering' whether I intended to or not I guess! My plan will be to hit the bike reasonably hard this weekend (in terms of both volume and intensity...pretty well a "usual" EN weekend), then do a swim+run on Monday, then taper off quite significantly for the rest of the week. I'm with you Al on not totally turning it off...I'll probably do a 30' or 45' run on Wednesday and a short jog on Friday, and probably a short bike on Thursday (I'm traveling all next week so biking will be quite tough to arrange as usual). And a probably a swim on Thursday or Friday...my typical race-week swim is 1500 yd with 10x100(15) so I think I'm getting the intensiity in there somehow.