Jen - question about tapering...

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-15-2004
Jen - question about tapering...
3
Sat, 04-16-2005 - 9:12am
I understand what tapering is and the the idea behind it and just want to make sure that I do it in a way that's effective. I have been running on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Since I did my 5K yesterday, I was planning on skipping tomorrow (or possibly doing something else but definitely not running). My plan was to do another 3 miles on Tuesday or possibly more just to build up my endurance. My 8K is on May 7th so that's only a couple of weeks from now (I don't have a whole lot of time to progress). At what point would I want to start tapering? Thanks a bunch. :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-11-2004
Sat, 04-16-2005 - 12:56pm

i know for a marathon or other big races, runners taper for like a whole week, and do shorter runs during that time, and you can find online training and tapering schedules from real running coaches. but i wasn't thinking of anything really that organized or formal when i referred to you tapering before the 8k, i just meant taking a few days off before your race.

i'm no expert so i'm just speaking from personal experience and what i've absorbed from running magazines, but i was thinking you'd start back to your regular schedule, let's say tuesday, continue your three times a week schedule from there, but running a full 5K each time, and then, the week before you run your race, maybe not run after tuesday. that still gives you a couple of weeks of running the 5K training runs.

but do you think it would be too much for you to run 5K three times a week for the next few weeks? that's the real question. if you think it would be too much, you could bump up your mileage to like 2.5 miles twice a week and then do a longer run of like 4 miles once a week, then make the tuesday before the race your last run or maybe do an easy 2 miler on thursday before the race. that's normally how runners train - shorter runs 2-3 times a week and then a longer run once a week - but since we are talking such a short period of time to train for the 8K, and since it's not THAT much longer than what you can already do, i thought it might be simpler to just do 5K training runs. i think you should just use your instinct which of those two types of plans would work better for you.

does that help?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-15-2004
Sat, 04-16-2005 - 7:18pm
Yeah, it does. It seemed a little silly to do any tapering at all for such a short race, but I also see the value in doing it regardless of how far one plans to run. I'll see how it goes Tuesday and take it from there. Thanks. :)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-11-2004
Sun, 04-17-2005 - 11:26am
i definitely think it makes sense to run a race on fresh legs, regardless of the length of the race, and especially when you are really pushing your mileage a bit.