Cyclists: What’s a Taper and Who Cares Anyway?

The next few weeks include some big events in the MN/WI area, including Ironman Wisconsin, the Chequamegon Fat Tire Fest MTB races and the Jesse James Days rides.  These events will likely be the culmination of a full year of training and racing, and will end the season for many athletes.

The final taper is a critical component to going into these key events fit, fresh and race-ready.  This taper is also a difficult time for many.  After training long and hard, it’s tough for many athletes to back off and have a really, really easy day.  And to ask them to have 2 easy days back-to-back is almost too much for them to bear.

However, these easy days are important to being ready for the event.

I’ll save the long-winded explanation for another time.  Let’s get right to the nuts and bolts today.

We need to go into our key events both “fresh” and “fit.”  We all understand the fit part.  We’ve trained hard and have built up a huge base of fitness with this training.  Along with this fitness, though, comes fatigue.  And fatigue accumulates (and dissipates) faster than fitness.

Prior to the event, we must rid ourselves of as much fatigue as possible, while at the same time not losing fitness.  And that’s really easier to do than most people think.

It essentially boils down to 2 factors:

1. Reduce training volume considerably over the final couple weeks (30% per week or more).  Much of our training stress and fatigue is the result of hours in the saddle.  So reducing our riding time allows our body to recover.
2. Maintain intensity, but at a reduced volume.  Once we’ve built up a certain level of fitness, it doesn’t take much to maintain it.  Therefore, over the final couple weeks do a “hard” workout every 2-3 days.  And the “hard” work should involve less time and fewer intervals than in previous training.  Again, reduce the volume by 30-50%. 

And important to note is that the “easy” days should be short and total recovery rides, not adding any training stress at all.

Yes, there are other factors to consider, such as nutrition, and I’ll talk about that another time.  It’s been my experience, however, that an athlete who really grasps the fresh/fit concept of the taper is about 90% of the way there.  Everything else falls into place.

I’ll discuss this in more detail over the next several days.  In the meantime, think about what questions/issues you have about tapering.  Pass your questions along to me via the comment section below, then GET OUT AND RIDE!