the fourth week

ease your load, however also maintain equal intensity in your workout. you're looking at decreasing the volume, but keeping that competitive edge. also, scheduling one hard workout at fifty percent volume would be good (after a proper warmup).

Good Point about rest weeks! Most programs will have this built into the schedule. It doesn't necessarily mean take it off. Just the amount of training. For instance, in run training, you are doing long runs each week, but every third week, you have a short long run. For example, week 1 long run is 10m, week 2 it's 12 miles, week 3 it's 6-8 miles. It's basically a 30-50% reduction in miles in this case. Just reduce distance/time for each exercise.

Edited by cameronw 2004-01-14 5:29 AM

one other thing to add is, while reducing volume, keep intensity AND frequency as normal...try not to take any extra days off..from my readings, studies have shown that decreasing volume AND frequency will reduce your 'feeling' in the disciplines...also applies to taper weeks before race.