With just under two weeks until race day, I am entering taper.  The taper phase is all about maintaining your fitness, while shedding all fatigue.  It doesn’t mean, you just stop working out and rest.

The first week of taper for me, feels very much like a regular week of working out.  I still do the same number of workouts.  Some of those workouts still contain hard efforts.  What changes significantly, is the length of time I spend working out.  I reduce my volume.

For example, my rides last week were all at least 90 minutes in length.  This evening my ride was only 60 minutes long.  It wasn’t just an easy 60 minutes though.  The ride included twelve, one minute intervals, in Zone 4.  That is some hard work.

By reducing my volume significantly this week, I will be shedding fatigue.  The thing is, it is tough to actually feel that you are getting fresher.  This is especially the case, early in the taper period.  My quads are feeling tired as I write this blog post.  Surely they shouldn’t feel that way now that I am in in taper.  

The answer is that eventually you will feel fully recovered, strong and ready to race.  That feeling should come at the end of taper.  You need to feel ready on race day, and not 12 days before race day.  If I felt fully recovered today, it is likely I would lose a little bit of sharpness over the next week or so.

What do I mean by losing sharpness?  I guess I mean that my muscles would begin to feel sluggish.  They would then take a good deal of time to feel good, once I start working out or racing.  That is not something we want.

What we want when entering taper, is to shed fatigue in a way that has us feeling sharp and race ready, just as race day arrives.  For me, I have learnt this takes about a two week taper.  For you it may be different, but only experience will guide you. We are all different when it come to tapering needs.