{"id":90,"date":"2007-10-17T06:14:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-17T14:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/?p=90"},"modified":"2008-08-05T05:40:23","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T13:40:23","slug":"taper-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2007\/taper-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Taper Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The taper is as important to your training as speedwork, long runs, and consistent training. Unfortunately, it is often abused and misused which can have negative impacts on your race performance.<\/p>\n<p>For weeks\/months you have been building up mileage, adding intensity, and are now peaking before your big race.\u00a0 If you have been following a professional or set training schedule then the taper is already built in and it should be relatively easy to follow.<\/p>\n<p>During your taper you will slowly decrease your overall mileage, as a result many people skip runs or workouts during this phase.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t! It is important to stay consistent, even as you back down the mileage.\u00a0 You should also focus on relaxing, stretching, and planning mentally for the big day!<\/p>\n<p>According to a study published in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ms-se.com\/pt\/re\/msse\/home.htm;jsessionid=GdvF09L6z6118KM4jTrfTlqD0h5mxpphbpJjLLJJX7mS7Hpd8p7g!-79285651!181195629!8091!-1\">Medicine &amp; Science in Sports and Exercise<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The primary aim of the taper should be to minimize accumulated fatigue, rather than to attain additional physiological adaptations or fitness gains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.runtowin.com\/2006\/08\/02\/what-is-a-taper.html\">Run to Win<\/a> lists four primary benefits of the taper:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>A reduced level of perceived exertion<\/strong>: You can run faster and longer with less energy and strain.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Improved muscular economy<\/strong>: The amount of oxygen that your muscles require at a given intensity decreases, and your VO<sub>2<\/sub> max (a measure of aerobic performance) can improve by as much as 8%.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Improved glycogen storage<\/strong>: Your muscles can store more fuel than is possible during intense training, assuming that your diet provides that fuel.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You will sleep better.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>BE CAREFUL<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Watch your diet, as you train less you are burning fewer calories<\/li>\n<li>Gradually decrease your mileage, not intensity. You can still do some speedwork even the week before a big race.<\/li>\n<li>Keep running consistently, your body needs to stay loose, just make them easier and shorter!<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t start your taper too soon, this can lead to negative effects as your body deconditions.<\/li>\n<li>Check out this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.runnersworld.com\/article\/0,7120,s6-238-244--10201-0,00.html\">article<\/a> with a long list of problems and solutions.<\/li>\n<li>Stretch<\/li>\n<li>Avoid extra stress or strenuous work<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:852adc43-cde5-4a63-a75d-5de1e63288fc\" class=\"wlWriterSmartContent\" style=\"padding-right: 0px; display: inline; padding-left: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-top: 0px\">Technorati tags: <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/information\">information<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/running%20information\">running information<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/running\">running<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/taper\">taper<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tags\/fitness\">fitness<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-5426328079068557\";\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\ngoogle_ad_format = \"468x60_as\";\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\";\n\/\/2007-05-28: Nick\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"4949967308\";\n\/\/ --><\/script><br \/>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Zemified by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/reblog.zemanta.com\/zemified\/7f4b3dec-58e3-47cb-8a18-2a6576f8104c\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.zemanta.com\/reblog_e.png?w=625\" alt=\"Zemanta Pixie\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The taper is as important to your training as speedwork, long runs, and consistent training. Unfortunately, it is often abused and misused which can have negative impacts on your race performance. For weeks\/months you have been building up mileage, adding intensity, and are now peaking before your big race.\u00a0 If you have been following a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,73,27],"tags":[104,685],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information","category-rci","category-training","tag-fitness","tag-training"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4iaAv-1s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":208,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/half-training-week-seven\/","url_meta":{"origin":90,"position":0},"title":"Half Training: Week Seven","author":"crossn81","date":"March 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Image provided by Stock.xchng This is an interesting week - the weather definitely warmed up which continued to create its own unqiue problems and I had a race on Sunday which changed my scheduling a bit. In Indiana there were very few Sunday races so it was never a problem\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Half Marathon&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Half Marathon","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/half-marathon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/images\/seven.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":567,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/marathon-training-week-17\/","url_meta":{"origin":90,"position":1},"title":"Marathon Training: Week 17","author":"crossn81","date":"September 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Img from flickr. This was the first full week of taper.\u00a0 I haven't felt too much taper madeness, yet. This could be because life has been so busy.\u00a0 I had to work late 2x's and went to a community fair on Saturday. Yuck!! But I can't really complain at all.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marathon&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marathon","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/marathon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/running\/images\/17.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5582,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2014\/30-days-july-into-august\/","url_meta":{"origin":90,"position":2},"title":"30 Days: July into August","author":"crossn81","date":"August 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I had written this post and then it got lost in the vast world of frustrating space! July's challenge was to spend 15 minutes outside each day. \u00a0I'm pretty sure that I managed to do that. \u00a0There is only one day that I remember thinking back that I wasn't sure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;30Days&quot;","block_context":{"text":"30Days","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/30days\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":612,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/marathon-training-week-18\/","url_meta":{"origin":90,"position":3},"title":"Marathon Training: Week 18","author":"crossn81","date":"October 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Img from flickr. TAPERING!!! In some ways life and work have been so busy that it is hard to really feel like the taper has kicked in.\u00a0 But then again 2 days in a row without running is hard to handle! But the weather has been amazing! Monday: 3 miles.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marathon&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marathon","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/marathon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/running\/images\/18.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5830,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2015\/may-goals\/","url_meta":{"origin":90,"position":4},"title":"May Goals!","author":"crossn81","date":"May 3, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"April was quite a busy\/weird month. \u00a0At the end of March we decided to sell our house and buy a new one! So we began April frantically cleaning and getting our house staged for selling while also looking at new houses. \u00a0In less than 2 weeks of signing a contract\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;30Days&quot;","block_context":{"text":"30Days","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/30days\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":564,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/marathon-training-week-16\/","url_meta":{"origin":90,"position":5},"title":"Marathon Training: Week 16","author":"crossn81","date":"September 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Img from stock.xchn Another week in the bag and only a few more to go.\u00a0 This was a pretty good week, the weather really warmed up which was a little surprising after last week but it still wasn't really hot. Monday: 5 easy miles. 3 miles on a modified Powderhorn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Marathon&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Marathon","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/marathon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/running\/images\/16.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":368,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}