hi im running in a marathon in 3 weeks and need some advice about the taper,the intensity,nutritional and how to break the milage down in the last weeks.
At the moment i am looking to run70% peak distance in the third week 50% of peak distance in the second and 20% of peak distance in the last week.
In the last two days before the marathon will be rest days with a couple of jogs in the week. how would you spread the milage in the last couple of weeks?
Thanks Rhys.
I tend to agree with Ron Hill - that people tend to taper too soon and too much. Of my 63 marathons, my best were when I trained hard to 10-12 days before the marathon, a couple of good training sessions the following week, with easy running in between. In fact my biggest PB advancement (2:22 to 2:16) was after racing 20miles in a PB two weeks before followed by a normal weeks training (80 miles), but only 30 in the following 4 days before resting the last two. Ron doesn't even believe in resting and would always have a short easy run/ jog the last two days.
But everyone's different. It takes a few marathons to find out what suits you.
I also didn't follow the recommended nutritional advice. I mostly ate a good balanced diet, but had far more high GI Carbs and saturated fats than would normally be recommended. But doing 80-100 miles a week, I couldn't see a problem. No need for supplements if your diets good. The odd pint of beer the night before(not too high strength) will not dehydrate you and help you relax. Pasta may be the recommended meal the night before, but steak and chips never did me any harm. You can have too much pasta. As long as your glycogen stores are full, there's no point in overfilling them.
Good luck in your marathon.
Steak and chips n beer, now i can believe in that! how about takeing water and isotonic during the race,,How often how much ?
I'd go with Erno.. I probably go 90%, 80% 60% in the final 3 weeks.. My last week tends to be 2 rest days, one mid week, then one the day before, with shorter harder runs that week and even mile reps at my marathon pace a few days before.
But depends how much you are currently doing.. I now peak at around 95 miles/week..
90,80,60 makes more sense than 70 50 20, twenty mile doesnt make sense does it ! ive been runnig 70 mile 4 the last five to six weeks .Its just last year i trained quiet hard for the snowdon and cardiff half but didnt get the results i wanted .after snowdon i reduced milage and took 2 minutes off my 10k in the twin piers ,wich to re sounds like a form of tapering .
Hopefully i can taper my Training correctly and get my 3:09 (snowdon) down a couple of minutes at chester!
Thanks for the advice i appreciate it. In the end week 3 and 2 before the marathon did 90 mile in total and took most of the last week of,f running 7,5 miles mid week and resting till race day . in the end i managed a 2:59:45 obviously im a bit chufed about!
Ran reasonably steady pased the 13mile at 1:25:30 so had paced my reasonably well ,though i had very rough time from 20 to 23 and a lot pased me ,maybe had i gone a bit slower i would have finished a bit sooner.
The bigest problem i had on the day was my stomach felt bolated and was burping throught the majority o the race by end of the race it was quiet bad,not to mention the fact that i was exhausted . Personaly i rekon the isotonic drink or gels must have been at falt
Th big question i have how much isotonic drink/gels do i need in a marathon whats the rate i need to be taking them in a race?
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