What he is saying is 3 weeks is too much, two week is much better?






That sounds like a pretty standard taper to me....

Sounds like typical Competitor articles claiming some new fangled methodology when in fact it is the same old, same old...

---

Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

oops. Let me try again.

The standard taper varied. In general, though, sprinters tended to take as long three weeks, while endurance swimmers, for example, were inclined to take as little as one week.

This initial comparison kind of discounts most of the article's points. Yes, distance swimmers only took a week taper, but they were swimming the 500/1650. Kind of a different beast from an Ironman. I don't think the whole article is wrong but you really can't compare the two taper types.

reduce volume/duration's, maintain frequency maintain some intensity.
Taper lengths should be longer the more fit you are, and should reflect the demands of the sport. You may need to taper longer for the run vs the swim.

I will say that most people train too much the week of the race. Race week should be about short/fast workouts and couch surfing, not working out and walking around the athlete village over and over.

EDIT: I will say him using strength in the article leads to an automatic 10 point credibility deduction from me. We know strength has very little to do with endurance, especially since he is using the terms speed and endurance. No need to even talk about strength.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Except the author suggests taking an approach more similar to ultra-runners. They often don't reduce volume much until the last 3-4 days.

To add another example Brett Sutton really doesn't believe that tapering is a good idea either and maintains volumes until a few days out from the race.

See my post above. But I'd be curious about what your thoughts on Brett Sutton's approach seems to be minimal reduction in volume if at all until the last few days.

I've done my share of Banister-style performance modeling.

One of the things you get when you do that is an estimate of the day after which a workout no longer makes you faster on race day. The follow through on that is that your taper should start within a few days of that number.

This method is not without its drawbacks or frustrations.

However, for age groupers in the 8 to 14 hours per week of tri training territory I have consistently found two things.
1. Tapers are shorter than two weeks.
2. In every case, the recommended run taper was longer than the bike which in turn was longer than the swim. Recommended swim tapers of 2 or 3 days are common.

Desert Dude above says that the better the fitness the longer the taper, I'd say it slightly differently in that the higher the volume the longer the taper.

What about in the 18-20 hour range?

damn you Kevin! That's exactly what I wanted to say. more volume=more tapering.

I'll add that when it comes to modelling Kevin is one of the best that I've met in the coaching world.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I think I've got the HIM or less distance mastered from a tapering perspective. However, the IM distance is still a mystery to me. I'm in the last big week for IMAZ and was trying to map out my next three weeks. For my first two IMs (coming off 18-20 hour peak) I did the standard 3 week taper and felt like I lost some speed and endurance.

This gets exactly to my question though. We frequently say "I am 3 weeks out from my Ironman so it is the last big week." But is this right? Why not keep going at 18-20 hours until 7-10 days out? Or maybe even less?

I too have done the standard 3 week taper and felt that I lost fitness. This is to be expected right? But the problem is I didn't get as much of a boost from the freshness as I lost from the fitness perspective.

I think in that range you can do a google scholar search for Banister model triathlete, one n in Banister. And look at what comes up, be cautioned though that the estimates vary widely between athletes.

If they didn't vary from person to person people wouldn't try to do performance modeling, we'd all just use averages.

Well,

Then look at your volume for half iron and how long of a taper worked for you there.

Then compare your current volume and keep in mind that three weeks seems too long coming off of 18 hours. I think you should be able to triangulate a good answer.

You didn't mention it but the one thing I would absolutely do is have a longer taper for running than biking and swimming the shortest.

Yea, I'm not sure what I am going to do. The few plans I use as a benchmark all show pretty steep dropoffs. Given that I don't feel like total shit this week I may modify next week and then do a two-ish week taper.

I would argue my 18 hours is a bit different than most. I think what's somewhat different is that I hit pretty much every workout really damn hard and I brick every single weekend. I was doing about 13 hours for my HIMs all year and tapering 7-10 days out with lots of success. Most would not like they way I train (high heart rate, Z3/Z4) but what I've discoverd is this type of load allows me to bounce back a bit quicker than normal from training (and races) after you build up a physical/mental tolerance to it.

I've slowed a bit due to the extra 5-6 hour load the last few weeks so I would guess 10-14 days may be the magic number. IMAZ is not an A race for me (just doing it to test if my focus on short couse speed this year can translate to an IM with only 6 weeks of slightly longer additional prep).

I think you need to take a step back and realize that most folks do not understand what "taper" means. It means that your 1) Not building and 2) that you progressively reduce training load to recover as much as possible without giving up too much fitness.

I agree, that most tend to back off too much too soon. I also think they drop their volume AND intensity. I like to drop my volume, but increase my intensity slightly such that my training load is reduced, but I don't end up feeling flat. I believe there's some other physiological advantages there too with increasing intensity. Part of this is polarity. So my training is more polarized in base and peak/taper periods and the least in build periods, which are more race specific.

I still do a 21 day taper, but that first week is only very slightly easier than my last build, and it progressively drops from there. Maybe I was just lucky, but it worked to damn well near perfection 2 times this year at my A races. I was only held back a little by fall into hte trap of going out too fast on the run both times. That's not a fault of my taper.

I also agree that the bike and swim taper just a little later than the run. Part of that too is that is simply the logistics of swimming and biking at the race location.

---

TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

my experience as been similar to others,. I like the 3 weeks taper for ironman and have rarely seen a athlete not reacting well to this. My biggest challenge is to get in there head that first week of taper is still a very decent training week.... it dosnt mean holiday.

Taper the running for 3 weeks, taper the bike for 2 weeks and the swim for perhaps 3-5 days.

With girls/womens, you can play it a little differently and taper them ''a la Brett Sutton'' train pretty hard until 10 days out... then shut it down completely the last few days before the race. I been scratching my head about the spectacular results of this approach but have witness it from my own eyes many times when training with him.....

For the guys...seems like a more dangerous endeavor..

---

Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

A good book: http://www.humankinetics.com/...e?isbn=9780736074841

An "art" not a science. Everything doesn't work for everyone.

Also big issue never mentioned is fueling/eating during taper. As athletes train/build and peak it's important that they don't continue to eat\fuel the same way.

Taper reduce volume/keep intensity up and slow down fueling.

Is this the citation you were thinking of?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10029340

In the past I've always done a 10 day taper for HIM's. Many times I was flat on race day, I wanted to try something different and see how it worked.

Prepping for Rev3 Florida I'm trying out a different taper strategy.
I don't remember where I got it but I'd like to give credit to them if I could.

Week 7 Normal training week
Week 6 Normal swim and bike but run+20%
Week 5 Normal swim, run but bike+25%
Week 4 60% to recover from two really big weeks, think I was really near 75%
Week 3 Normal Training week (this is where I'm at now)
Week 2 60% of volume which is backing it off on Wednesday
Race Week 30% of volume

jaretj

Many good points above:

After 20+ years of log books and much trial and error...he goes:

1. Listen to your body
2. It is an art and totally different for each race, each year and each person
3. Volume of current training/race distance are key
4. Intensity for a short period at the end of the week before the race is perfect
5. Example HIM plan

3 weeks before race: Big volume; 3 swims: 3,500-m each, 4 runs -4/4/8/12 or even a 13-14, 5 bikes with the last being race pace on the same day as the race during the week; in this case a 56-mile for time with a very hard 4-mile brick after...on the exact course of the race if possible...massage on Monday!
2 Weeks:Volume about 2/3: 3 swims with the last swim a 2,200 meter for time, 3 runs-4/4/8 at race pace for stand alone half marathon, 5 bikes but less distance but still a 56 mile at about 85%...massage on Monday!
Race week: Volume1/3...2 swims with a bunch of drills and 50/100's, 2 runs-4/4 easy with a few pick-ups, 3 bikes, lots of yoga and abs...nothing day before the race but relaxation and focus.

Got me from 5:52-4:57 with min. background in S/B/R...Football and Wrestling!

---

STIndiana
America Multi-Sport, Inc.
America's Half June 10, 2017
USAT RD Century Club
http://www.americamultisport.com

As you said, this isn't an A race, so this is the perfect opportunity to experiment. My first response would be to just use your standard taper of 7-10 days. If it works great for a shorter distance, it may be good for this race. Ask yourself if you feel more fatigued on the 18 hour training regime than the usual shorter regime. If the reduced intensity across 18 hours means you are not significantly more fatigued, the longer taper may be counter productive. If you get to the race and you don't feel like you have sparks shooting out your arse, you know you need a longer taper :-) if things go well you can fine tune your IM taper from there. If it doesn't work well you learned that you need more of a taper.

This makes really good sense.