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The Infamous Taper Question

DSmith's picture
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130
Member
1679 days
started by DSmith on April 26, 2005

I have a 1/2 ironman coming up on May 7th and need to start tapering. I have been told to go hard until this Wednesday and then cut my mileage in half for the next few days with my workouts being low in intensity. Then take next Wednesday and Thursday off. The Friday before the race I should swim 20 min. bike 20 min. and run 15 min.

Does this sound right or is it too much, too little? Any help is appreciated.

Tribro's picture
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2334
Member
2427 days
Tribro posted 3 years ago.

Assuming the race is on Saturday this is how I would do it.

Yes Wednesday is probably good for fianlizing any hard, long mileage, meaning you don't want to do your normal long ride and run this weekend.

As for next week however, I do cut the workout in half but the intensity is up. So, shorter distances but more tempo/fartleks and bike sprints. Not to overdue it but you want to get the machine (your body) ready to fire on all cylinders come race day, the higher intensity stuff gets you mor prepared for that hard day. Assuming you've been doing some speed work prior to this week, you don't want to go out and do some fartleks and sprints and risk getting sore if you haven't been doing some of that to this point.

I usually just take one day off, then do what you have listed the day prior to the race.

hope that helps...

btw: http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon/ironman-workouts/taper02.htm
this is a look at a taper week for the ironman program in the training section. Just some ideas. As you'll see the beginning of the week has more interval and intensity stuff, tapering further off leading into a Friday rest day with a Sunday race.