Trial and Error of taper

I'd like to hear the responses to this, also.  I have a 'B' race a few weeks out from my 'A' next spring and would like to see how the taper affects performance at a distance I've never tried before (OLY), or will that taper be a loss of training opportunity during a peak?

So I have absolutely no experience to answer this question, but I would love to see someone answer it who has a clue, so I'm bumping:)

I think it would depend on how important the A race was to me.  If it was really important (and I think we're talking about Nationals here, right?), I would absolutely experiment with the taper strategy now.  It doesn't seem like you will lose "that" much, if any, in training opportunity or fitness, and you could learn a lot.  Also, because of the strength component of the XC terrain, it strikes me that you could benefit even more from an optimized taper for this kind of race.

To break it down further, I think a PERFECTLY executed taper will yield 1-2% tops in performance gain. Is it worth dialing back on a weeks worth of training to practice tapering when I don't exactly have an efficient way of measuring how effective the taper was?

In my opinion, I'd think you would get more out of a race from finding an optimal taper than you would from a couple of days of additional hard training.  You are already a pretty finely tuned racer in terms of fitness, speed, etc.  You know where you are with that and probably are not going to gain a whole lot in the grand scheme of things from another workout or two.  But, sounds like you have not found or validated that you have the optimal taper. 

Still, I think there's a lot to be said for solving for some of the unknowns.  I know you can't reliably measure the effectiveness, but you really are so good at how you "feel" and I think there's a big part to the mental sharpness of taper too.  By practicing the taper you will be able to know not only what better rested legs feel like, but what racing with sharp(er) mental acuity feels like, and I think that could be very interesting for you, especially since you have had some breakthroughs recently in terms of strategy and pushing. 

You could even experience a net training gain by dialing it way back and then racing hard. Stranger things have happened :)

You make some good points in the second paragraph.

And your point about getting a training gain by dialing it back and then racing hard is something I have considered. I would imagine much the way one single hard workout stimulates a small fitness gain. A race ran say, 30 seconds faster because of the 1% gain from taper might yield the same results as a "business as usual" type of week. Or maybe it won't. That's beyond my understanding for sure.

1-2% compared to what?  

I think the bolded is important - how will you know if it worked or not?  When I swam, I had good tapers and not so good ones.  I could tell when one was nailed as my times would improve significantly.  However, I had a very reliable benchmark to go off as I was swimming the exact same distance every time in the pool.  Unless you have done this particular race before (multiple times really), are you really going to be able to tell? 

On top of that, let's say that you do nail it.  Will following the same taper work again in a few weeks?  Going through that taper week and racing will alter your training load and possibly mean you have to adjust the second taper accordingly.

Just some food for thought.    Personally I wouldn't do a full taper for a non A race just to see if it can be reused in a few weeks.  If you had a longer period between them then I'd give it more thought.

*disclaimer* - none of the above is based on any science!  I'm just thinking out loud.  

I can't remember where I read that 1=2% but I think it was Daniels, I found this http://www.ausport.gov.au/sportscoachmag/planning/tapering_the_real_art_and_science_of_coaching

Which says 2-4% performance increase. So I would assume an increase in your performance with a taper vs. without? But I can't verify that source either.

And you make some very interesting points here too. And I appreciate the non-science answer  Definitely some things to consider.

Yeah, he talks about taper for sure. I don't believe he brings up my dilemma though.

He does mention that runners who haven't reached a particularly high level of training might be better off with little taper because they are still making weekly improvement. I definitely feel as though I have room to make weekly improvement but I'm not sure if that fits the situation I laid out or not.

Great post Dale.

I watch the high school kids train and race all season........ends up being 8-10 races in about 10 weeks....all 5K.  They just keep working at about the same rate and get faster and faster.  The last 3 weeks are "championship races"......Districts, then Sectionals, then State...get in the top 30 or you don't race next weekend....and then they're right back at it the next week.  Four days before state they back off to the same distances they've been doing with tempo and speed workouts, but all easy running instead.  It worked pretty well.  Then again, you can do almost anything when you are 15-18 and not suffer from it.

OK - so I'm late to the party here.  

(NB: there is a TLDR at the bottom.  I like that approach, oh salty one)  

LB makes a good point about a short/non-existent taper, and that young-uns can get away with a lot more.  I think the short taper is good for a true B race.  BUT, all of those races you have leading up the A can't be B's - most have to be C's, right?  So...

I got a bit behind this past season as, when looking back, I treated a couple too many races as B's with mini tapers and wound up with a bit less training stress than I would have liked coming into the A's in the middle and end of season.  

To me, and perhaps only FOR me (the standard YMMV disclaimer here), looking at a block of races with an A at the end, I'd want to "train through" most of them leading up to the A.  For one mid cycle B race, a mini-taper, sure.  This gives you a peek at how your body reacts to the taper and can help dial in the length and total cut back amount of the full taper (along with how close you are to peak training - if you haven't the total volume, you'll want less taper/more stress until the final race taper, IME).

I would be wary of a full taper as an experiment, though, as it might scrub more fitness than you want - unless you're already feeling training overload.  In that case, you might back off a bit more (sort of a mini-period).  But, for me this season the couple extra tapers (short ones, but tapers) leading to earlier races scrubbed some fitness that I didn't want to lose before the big races.

One aside, I had a forced taper before my last tri (a local fun sprint) secondary to injury.  I thought I'd be completely dead-legged going into it but drilled it - and surprised the heck out of myself.  I **think** part of that was not having lost a lot of base and being able to "fake it" a little in a shorter race - but my legs definitely worked well (and was I ever sore the next day!).  I could not have made another "withdrawal" from my training bank after that race, but the time off seems to have helped.

TLDR:  don't do too many tapers - even small ones - before the one that really counts.  And, for the one that counts, it depends on how much stress you have coming into the taper and what has worked for you before (and even then it seems hard to hit it just right - gotta have a little luck, too).

I hope you DRILL IT!!

Matt

I think you make a really interesting point about all of the outside factors/stresses that come into play.

When I have a taper week I find I tend to cram in all the crap that I had been missing out on due to training. Then pretty soon I'm overbooked with social obligations, errands and side projects.

I am going to try and work on this!

TLDR

Just kidding!  

You are right, those races were more like a series of "C's" because if they were B's, I would likely not only taper but also recover (similar to how I would for a HM in a marathon build-up.)

Do you not feel that a taper provided and increase in performance in your "B/C" race that then provided you an even greater ability to hit harder training paces?

The taper for the B races let me go faster during the race, but it was at the cost of a bit less training stress prior.  I don't taper at all for a C race (except maybe to move a light day from midweek to just prior, perhaps).  In these, I didn't go as fast during the race, but I had more total stress that week (and maybe even a bit more so the following week, as I don't need as much recovery from a C as from a B - just that little bit more speed (same effort, more speed) requires some recovery for me for some reason, even when it's the same total work).

So, yes I went faster with even a mini-taper.  But, I didn't notice (at least that I could tell) a difference in the paces I could hit during training.  In some ways, it was almost the opposite in that I went faster in a B race and that tore me down just a bit more, so I needed some recovery afterwards.  In both cases, my training paces picked up - but I THINK for the same reason.  Amount of training stress consistently applied.

It was just applied differently, but evened out (as long as there weren't too many B's - that was my original point: lot's of mini-tapers is lots of stress you don't get, and that led to a slightly slower final A race than I think I could have put together, or at least it felt that way).

My paces got better in a consistent manner all season.  However, they improved more with consistent training.  Note that within that consistency, there was a LOT of variation as to how I applied it (intervals, long steady, tempo, etc.), but the higher the total volume, the faster-er I got.  

I hadn't noticed this same effect as much when I was a single endurance sport focused person (running), as I always seemed able to get consistent work in.  Balancing the load with all 3 was harder, and so I think this effect was more pronounced (although even then only in retrospect).  This was my first FULL season of tri, so I'm really still learning the cause:effect relationship.

IOW, YMMV.

Matt