When you think of Ironman training you picture increasing training volumes week after week. This is obvious, but have you considered how to wind down your training to race day?
Once you’re 2-3 weeks out from an Ironman you can no longer increase your fitness a meaningful amount. All that’s left to do is nail your taper so you can arrive on race morning mentally and physically ready to race. The unfortunate reality is many self-coached athletes get this wrong.
How does a taper work?
This may sound obvious, but the goal of tapering is to freshen up your body before race day. More technically, you want to shed the accumulated fatigue from training before you toe the start line.
Many self-coached athletes are concerned they’ll lose fitness if they dial back their training over the last few weeks! If you feel you may lose fitness by tapering…..YOU’RE RIGHT!
This is one of the more counterintuitive aspects of tapering for an Ironman, but the reality is that you shed fatigue at a much faster rate than you will lose fitness. On race day you’ll be better served being slightly less fit than your peak, but carrying much less fatigue!
Most coached athletes begin tapering 2-3 weeks out from the race. This may seem like a long time, but it takes a long time for your body to recover! A typical weekly volume over the last weeks of training may look like the graph below:
The mental benefits of tapering.
The benefits of tapering go well beyond the physical. Mental fatigue is real and significantly impacts your motivation to race. During the race you will need every ounce of mental energy to reach your potential. If you’re too mentally fatigued you will not perform to your best.
I liken Ironman training to being on a highway. Tapering is like exiting the highway and taking the last few turns towards your destination. You’re not traveling as fast, but you are using more mental energy to navigate the last few steps of your journey. In the last weeks before your race you’ll need to organize bills, family, travel, nutrition, race plans, and work among others. Tapering helps to free up mental energy to accomplish these tasks.
Tapering in real life.
Many athletes (myself included) don’t feel well during the taper period. Your body is so used to being “on” that once you decrease training volume you may begin to feel niggles. Some of these aches and pains are real and some of these are your mind playing tricks on you! At some point you’ll likely feel like you’re going stir crazy! Remember this is normal and just your body shedding fatigue.
I find an athlete’s primary goal should be to take this extra time to leave your work/home life in a place that won’t be soaking up mental bandwidth while you’re racing. It’s much better to race with a clear head than worrying about what you left unfinished.
A message to self-coached athletes:
Most coached athletes arrive on race morning mentally and physically ready to race! This is because they nail their taper! A common mistake self-coached athlete’s make is to train too much in the weeks leading up to an Ironman. Do your research, understand the benefits of tapering, and implement a taper strategy that gets you to race morning mentally and physically ready to race!