Tapering for Half-Marathon, Recovery

by Terence
(Toronto)

Hi Marius,

I've decided to run a half-marathon on October 10, and am almost done week 1 of the marathon training. Looking at the schedule, there's a 3:30 walk/run around 10 days before the half-marathon. If I'm looking to finish strongly in the Half (as the end of my training), isn't this a bit too much in advance of a race? I would think that one should taper down in order to half good energy/glycogen stores for the race.

Also, would the recovery for the half-marathon be the same?

Regards,
Terence

Answer : Hi Terence and thanks your question.

As for the tapering for the half marathon if this is your prime goal for the schedule, you want to use the last 2-3 weeks that are originally planned before the marathon as the tapering period (Week 13-15 or so) So you put those weeks as the weeks leading you into the half marathon to ensure proper tapering.

In terms of recovery, it is about half the time usually after the half marathon - a little bit depending of your finishing time. So you can cut that "post race" period that you see in the 200 day plan in half !

I wish you all the best,
kind regards,
Marius