DaveLeeNC

I have been training 'hard' for a difficult century ride at the end of the month. At a high level 'hard' means about twice the workload (starting June 1) as I had been doing the previous several months. But this level is not something new to me and I made that sudden transition with no obvious ill effects.

In the past my taper has typically been no longer than 6 days where I cut back significantly for 4 days and did little to nothing the 2 days before the event. But in reading various suggestions for a taper, 2 weeks or even longer is not uncommon. It just seems really long to me.

Just curious as to how folks around here feel about that. Thanks

dave

ps. If I were to change one thing about the training I have done, I would have strictly followed a 2 days on, one day off schedule. At age 70 I just need more rest and I did too much'tired training' (IMRHO where the R is retrospective).

DaveLeeNC

My apologies for having opened up such a controversial topic

FWIW, this pretty much boils down to "do I do my last long ride (over 60 miles) 11 days or 8 days before the event". I am inclined to let the weather make that decision.

dave

Seattle Forrest

Two weeks sounds long to me too. I would think 8 days should be plenty of time to recover from a metric.

asgelle

Two weeks following an exponential decay on volume maintaining frequency and intensity, which is the most general recommendation I've seen for a two week taper, doesn't drop the volume much the first week.

DaveLeeNC

WOW - I am a numbers guy and calculating some kind of exponential workout decay seems excessive even to me.

OTOH, I just have to ask anyway. What kind of time constant is recommended by these folks? 1 week maybe?

dave

asgelle

O.K. I’m not going to say what is or isn’t excessive, but 1) you only have to do it once, and 2) you can look it up. In any case, the difference between a linear and exponential decay is a secondary effect compared to the benefit of the taper.
As I wrote, two weeks, but race-1 day is openers and race-2 is off so about 10-11 days going from 100% to 20-30%. However, you also have to look at the demands of the particular event. Tapering has been shown to be of greater benefit for high intensity efforts or events and matters less for threshold and sub-threshold efforts. Also, because of the reduction in volume, there can be some loss of aerobic fitness. Also, tapering is different from resting. All this needs to be considered.

DaveLeeNC

Thanks. FWIW, a time constant of 7 days yields a 'decay' to 21% of the original value after 11 days.

This is from WAY back in my running days and was not a taper thought. But the running coach Arthur Lydiard's training approach was high mileage until a shortish time before a big race where you do speed work. His statement was that you had to work hard to get fast quickly "before you lost your stamina". Your statements kind of remind me of that type of balance.

Thanks again.

dave