Tapering Tips for Endurance Athletes: Science and Strategies

Paul Warloski (00:27)

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast where we navigate training, fitness and health for everyday athletes. Today we are talking about tapering for important events. How long should we taper? What should we include in the taper? What does the research say? We'll tackle all of this and more this week on the Athletes Compass podcast. Paul, let's define what a taper is and why endurance athletes use it as a training tool. How does it impact performance?

in endurance events.

Paul Laursen (00:59)

Yeah, well, the man taper is a lot of a lot of athletes when they train for endurance events, they they go through these phases and they can't wait for the taper week because they're they're usually feeling fatigued, tired. And the taper is a reduction in the training load. Remember, training load is your training stress. And then by reducing that training load, you get back

level of freshness or recovery. And the whole idea, the whole simple idea behind a taper is that you're, you know, you're, or actually the whole idea first of all with training is that you're accumulating this stress and then to race you remove that stress so that you can, you know, you can show off all of the fitness that you've gained. And without that taper it's a lot more difficult to show off that fitness that you've gained.

So the taper is a really fundamental part of the whole training process to allow you to sort of see what you've put in the system, right? So yeah, that's really the taper at a simplistic level. We can dive into it, into the nuts and bolts. There's lots of little nuances that the sports scientists have gone through, but yeah, ultimately it's giving back freshness to the body so that you can perform optimally.

Marjaana Rakai (02:27)

So exactly what physiological changes are we aiming for with the taper?

Paul Laursen (02:34)

Yeah, so I guess lots of them, but you know, the main one we have to think about is probably the central nervous system because that's first and foremost, the brain and the spinal cord, the neuromuscular system. That's what's going to allow you to, first and foremost, deliver your performance on the day. So, and you know, that's why, you know,

Sleep is so important throughout the whole training process, as you know, too well, Marjaana But, you know, like the taper is like an additional relief of all of that training stress that's around you. Now that's just one system. All of the systems are really involved, but, you know, there's things that are going on at the muscular level as well. There's things that are going on at the cardiovascular level too, right? Like all of a sudden you can initially see sort of a reduction in the heart rate.

given the submaximal exercise intensities, all of a sudden you're able to show off this improved efficiency. But ultimately stress is lower and physiological function is higher at a very simplistic level. But there's other things that have been shown too, like enhanced muscle glycogen levels and

But yeah, like these are really small nuances and whatnot. The main thing is really comes back down to the mind and the body too. The physiology is more primed to be able to deliver on any of the fitness that's been gained.

Paul Warloski (04:25)

Thank you.

So, we had a good discussion on our coaching forum on the Athletica Forum about tapering and the different methods. You've done a lot of coaching, Paul and Marjaana What have you used to determine the best tapering strategy for an athlete's specific event and individual needs?

Paul Laursen (04:48)

I'll go first, Marjaana, if that's okay. And basically, you know, they really range, I think from, I think the science says between 14 and 21 days. So, and I think I've even seen it longer, up to like a month. One of the sports scientists that I follow is Indigo Mujica. And he's, he did his whole PhD in this area, I remember. And

He was really looking at all the various different types of tapers from these, and the science gets a little bit weedy and with linear tapers and step -based tapers and all these sorts of things. We really have to look at the whole process of the training that, and Athletica does this to a T, right? When you look at your performance management chart, your performance potential,

in your charts, you can really see the periodized plan that's laid out for you there. And if you go to your own profile on Athletica, you'll see it, you know, sort of stepping up week to week in that, you know, increased training load. And then when you get to the top of that graph, you'll all of a sudden see that it kind of plateaus and then comes down. And these are all the various different factors. Go back to the load and training load.

and performance management chart podcast that we did. We'll include that in the show notes. But basically, we see this increased fitness, we see an increase in fatigue, and we see also an increase in the form as well, the freshness. So all these parts of that performance potential are moving all the time.

more and more fatigue, more and more fitness gets built up. But if you don't pull back, you know, you can't, you can't display that performance that's been built up, that fitness that's been built up. So, Athletica uses a two week taper and that's right in the middle. Typically we do like about a 75 % reduction in the training in two weeks out and a 50 % reduction from the last week.

in the second week. So it kind of goes 75, 75 50 in general. And that's what I found to your question, a long wind, long winded way of answering the question. I've found it very individual. And I have also found that the athletes have been able to guide me as to what they prefer. And I'm thinking of Athletica Ambassador Andy Buescher.

I know, and I can recall from his tapers, I would prescribe certain training, a lot more training than he wanted in his taper. So he really liked to have that last week, really not doing too much of anything, if I'm honest. That was his preference. But, you know, other athletes that I've coached, Kyle Buckingham, you know, he won his

Paul Warloski (07:58)

Thank you.

Paul Laursen (08:08)

Ironman South Africa race when I was coaching him on a taper that wasn't much of a taper for a lot of people. He was still training pretty hard in that week kind of coming up. So it is extremely individual as a key point, Paul. And I think that really kind of comes down to trial and error with your athletes. And we have to, as coaches, we need to listen to those athletes for self -coached athletes, everyday athletes out there.

Paul Warloski (08:21)

you

and

Paul Laursen (08:35)

you're probably going to need to do a little little of experimenting yourself. So I'll hand it over to Marjaana Marjaana her thoughts on the area.

Marjaana Rakai (08:44)

Yeah, tapering is super interesting and I like to think of it like you have to look at it as a whole. How well has the athlete been able to train? And oftentimes for my personal experience in my training, there's always something that happens so that my like training hasn't gone so well. So I don't have anything to taper from, right? Like I haven't accumulated so much fatigue that I feel like

If I don't get a two, three week taper, I'm dying. It's just like, just keep training one by one, like one day after another, just take those small steps and just don't stop training. It's just maybe a little bit shorter. And I think athletic training plan for a triathlon is really nice. I like, you keep the frequency, your volume goes down and then you have the little bit of, intensity in there.

so that has been working really well for me. So I usually don't have more than maybe seven, seven days because my training history hasn't accumulated so much stress that I need to. So I think everybody needs to like think about how, how much fatigue they have in their body. but I also have experienced that some of my athletes.

who are very consistent, they rather have two or three week taper. Because they have accumulated so much fatigue that they feel like they need to have a longer taper. And if they don't, they don't feel fresh legs on the race day. So totally individual. But I want to throw in strength training. I think Paul W. We talked about strength training during taper on the forum post.

And I think that's also individual. Like for me, I like to feel a little bit muscle tension. So I throw in just a really easy strength training session during that race week. Cause I feel like I'm very flexible and hypermobile. So if I don't have a little bit of that muscle tension, I feel like I'm really flat. So I like to throw in a little bit of a strength training in there to.

Paul Warloski (10:59)

All right.

Marjaana Rakai (11:10)

you know, feel ready and a bit of muscle tension.

And I have a throwback question for you, Dr. Laursen. If somebody is fast twitch versus slow twitch athlete, how much more taper with their fast twitch muscle?

type like athlete need or is there any difference in tapering?

Paul Laursen (11:35)

Great, great question. I don't think we totally know. But if I'm putting a guess on the answer to that question, it would come down to the diesel engine. They're just excellent at recovering in the phenotype. So they would probably need less recovery. And therefore, they would need less of a taper. They would probably be

Paul Warloski (11:37)

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (12:04)

perform better as doing a little bit more training day in, day out. And that's, again, even if I go back to the example that I just gave for the two individuals with Andy and Kyle, my two gun athletes, both winning races, but kind of almost guiding their own tapers individually. Kyle would be more the diesel and

I think Andy would be more of a hybrid kind of an athlete. And yeah, Andy with the hybrid, he would, yeah, he almost kind of prefers more of a taper, more rest, whereas Kyle just kind of could keep going and keep going. So yeah, I think, but again, I don't think we totally know just yet, but in time, I think we'll have the data to be able to.

Marjaana Rakai (12:56)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Laursen (13:00)

individualize for those things. Marjaana I think you highlighted a really important point and I just don't want us to lose it. So I want to emphasize it. And that kind of like all of this individualization that we're talking about, your example where it's just one week in some of your tapers, it really does come

you know, the length of your build period beforehand. If you have had a very long build period beforehand, you've accumulated a lot of fatigue and therefore a lot of fitness, you probably will need a longer taper. But to your point, if you're just having a short build period, you still kind of, there's still more potential to gain in terms of fitness. So this is all theoretical, but it's like,

the shorter periods of time would suggest that you could have an even shorter taper as well, because there's not as much fatigue that's accumulated into the system. So there's that. But there's also the other angle on that too. The longer you've been training, the higher that fitness. Again, theoretically, it's

your any training that you do, you also have like you get like it doesn't dent you so much. You actually don't accumulate as much fatigue and therefore or like your ratio isn't higher like the ratio of any fatigue to fitness isn't as great. So it doesn't hurt you as much when you're and this is like think about yourself, anyone listening.

as you're going through your own training. Think about how training just kind of feels easy towards the end in a way, right? Like you can do so much more. So it's the same sort of thing because training's not impacting you as much. You probably like you get fresh really, really quick. So again, in that context, you often don't need as much too. And I'm reflecting on my own mistakes in the past.

and iron man buildups. I remember when I was a young iron man, trafli and I would build up for a long, long, long time in my training, like back from, you know, January and then the iron man Canada is in August and I would get to, I would get to August and I would get to say three weeks out and I would be trialing a three week out taper. And I tell you, I was, I basically, I detrained for three weeks a couple of times and it's, and, it was a huge.

Huge mistake, and this was all before the whole time of monitoring and these sorts of things. And we, you know, really, we were pretty unaware of these models, but that was a real, that was a hard race because I was basically doing that race, you know, untrained, so to speak, after, you know, three weeks. My last hard, long thing was like three weeks out, but you know, we live and learn, but so.

Paul Warloski (16:13)

Thank you.

Marjaana Rakai (16:14)

Yeah, totally. I just want to pick apart a couple of things. So when we start a training program, one hour run affects us more, like it gives us more fatigue than one hour run, like at the end of just before our race, correct? That's the way you wouldn't... Yeah.

Paul Laursen (16:32)

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's the perfect example, right? Like think of how a one hour run at the end of your marathon training for an Ironman is just like a walk in the park, right? Like it's like how before a 25 minute or a 30 minute run would feel, right? But now because you've got these big ones in the tank, all this fitness has been gained. It just feels like a recovery run almost.

Marjaana Rakai (16:44)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I often see people like try to get fitter the last week. Like they, they are doing like a reverse taper and they try to cram in last minute training thinking they'll get fitter. But that's not what we're trying to do with taper. We're trying to maintain our fitness VO2 max, whatever parameter you want to look at.

while gaining freshness, right? And what I've read from the research, we'll link the articles with the show notes, is that at high level, you can gain like 3 % performance increase. So if we're looking at everyday athletes, you can gain more than 3 % by just staying consistent and understanding how you...

Paul Warloski (17:53)

Thank you.

Marjaana Rakai (17:58)

improve and how you stay consistent, right? And those rest weeks or rest days are perfect example and perfect opportunity to find out what works for you in terms of, okay, how many days do I need recovery before I feel fresh again and ready to go for the new training block or new training week or whatever.

So if you're a self -coach athletes, use those, you know, in between training weeks, periods where you're trying to gain more freshness and recover, how many days do you need to feel fresh and get those puppy legs back? And then use that with learning to, you know, like design your own taper. But don't put so much, you know, like emphasis on that last...

taper period, just try to stay consistent throughout the base and build. I think that's where more gains are being picked up than the last three or two weeks.

Paul Warloski (18:59)

you

Paul Laursen (19:09)

Yeah, that's well said. Consistency always key right down to the taper. I will say there's a often, there's a in large builds for an A race, there tends to be anecdotally, we see athletes often taking a full day off of training.

either two days out or one day out or even sometimes kind of both. And there does seem to be, if there's a lot of fitness in the tank, that does seem to be something that's, you know, reamed success ultimately for many athletes. One of the other key principles, Paul, we should highlight is that in a taper,

We often also do not want to lose the frequency of training that Marjaana was mentioning and the intensity of the training. What we do want to lose is the volume of training, the duration, the overall duration. So that's kind of one of the key points. So you think about from a frequency and a consistency standpoint, that makes sense, right? Because you're just like, you're always, you're pinging the body.

that intramuscular signaling, cell signaling is just boom, boom, I'm still training, I'm not losing this, but I'm not doing as much, right? So this freshness kind of comes out. Same with the intensity, still recruiting all the various different motor units that I need to recruit to stay sharp. So there's still some intensity in these sorts of sessions. And those factors have, again, been put forth.

anecdotally and in the research to elicit that 3 % improvement in performance that Marjaana was highlighting.

Paul Warloski (21:08)

So one of the things that I've noticed too in coaching junior athletes, as well as older adults is that there's a pretty big difference in, in what juniors and young people can manage for that intensity. They tend to bounce back more quickly from intensity. So they tend to, at least what I've noticed in our tapers, they tend to tolerate

just a little bit more than, than I would as a 60 year old, I can't handle as much intensity. They can keep that going in their, that consistent intensity before their main event, but it's still a very individualistic kind of process of how much intensity to keep. I'm still curious about that strength training because I, I don't like strength training the week of, of my A event.

And I tend to not include that in my athletes. Paul, do you know anything about research with strength training and, and peaking or tapering? Is there anything that you are under that you're aware of?

Paul Laursen (22:17)

so Erin, this is not in the research, just the anecdotes from the top, the top, athletes and their strength trainers. And specifically I'm reflecting on training science podcast. I did with Erin Carson, who's a top level strength trainer for many, many pros. And she likes to keep a, I believe she likes to keep a, at least one, possibly two strengths.

Paul Warloski (22:18)

or anecdotally.

Hmm.

Paul Laursen (22:45)

short strength training sessions in that week just for exactly the same reason that Marjaana mentioned, just that muscle tension, but these are short and sharp. Like these are nothing as fatiguing or extensive, but it's like you've just hit the target, done maybe you're doing one set, and it doesn't even kind of phase you, but it's something and it's.

Paul Warloski (22:51)

Okay.

Paul Laursen (23:10)

it syncs in line with that frequency that Marjaana was kind of bringing out. So we're not losing too much of that frequency. We might lose a couple sessions, and especially if you're having a whole day off, well, you're definitely losing some of the sessions. But yeah, it's not one you necessarily want to lose.

But I'm like you, Paul, and I'm also very individual in it too. If there's anything, it's very short, but I've also seen lots where there's nothing there too. And I think it really kind of comes down to the athlete and what they like. Myself personally now, I like to kind of keep that strength session coming kind of in line with Erin and her recommendations, but nothing that you're gonna feel the next day, put it that way.

Paul Warloski (24:03)

Mm -hmm.

Marjaana Rakai (24:03)

Yeah, you're not doing plyos or like heavy sets of fives with heavy weights. Nothing like that. Yeah, you don't... Yeah.

Paul Laursen (24:08)

No.

No, no. Short and sharp. Just something that, yeah, hits the nervous system, hits the pop, keeps you activated.

Marjaana Rakai (24:21)

Yeah, without soreness. So Dr. Laursen you've taught me to use yoga and meditation to bring my nerves down and just Zen, specifically during the taper, but otherwise as well. I used to hype myself up. Like I would listen to, you know, music and like really hyped up before races or like even just

Paul Laursen (24:23)

Exactly.

Marjaana Rakai (24:49)

regular training sessions, like I was getting hyped up, like I was doing Olympic games. And I think that was probably a little too much. But now I, even on a race morning, I bring myself, you know, to a Zen state, just being ready and calm. So I find that

Paul Warloski (25:00)

Thank you.

Marjaana Rakai (25:17)

like meditation and yoga helps me a lot. But many athletes experience nerves, anxiety during the taper. What would you advise people that feel anxiety and restlessness during the last few weeks?

Paul Laursen (25:27)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, well, I think work on your own mindfulness is also very individual and it's always like it's a personal work on for all of us, right? I think, yeah, like we've all got busy lives and this is just part of at least in today's age kind of being human in the modern world is, you know,

The tech is always there, it's always ever present. The family's always there. And the demand's on us, it's always ever present. But it's important to take stock of it all and find some quiet time and collect yourself and develop your own mindfulness for just your awareness of it all. And you can actually, yeah, there's...

There's so many apps out there that can be very helpful in gaining awareness of mindfulness and your mindfulness practice. The one I used was the Waking Up app with Sam Harris that really taught me a lot of, I believe, positive behaviors in the mindfulness area and allows me to control my stress. But I'm sure there's loads of other ones that are out there. So what do you use, Mariana?

Marjaana Rakai (26:59)

I use com.

Paul Laursen (27:00)

Yeah, how do you find it?

Marjaana Rakai (27:01)

I love it. I love it. Like it has like a happy tracker. So I see it when I'm slacking and not doing my meditation. I see it right away. And then I tried to keep the streak going, which is, which is fun, but yeah, I'm really enjoying comp.

Paul Laursen (27:20)

And what do you get out of Com, like now compared to when, like before and maybe also in the context of the taper?

Marjaana Rakai (27:32)

I started using it, I was injured and overtrained. They have these seven -day meditations.

And it helped me, you know, staying in the moment and, you know, doing the best I can at this moment while I was injured and, and over trained and not being on the couch and couldn't train. Feeling sorry for myself, but now it's more like a, it just puts me in the right mindset and focus right first thing in the morning. and I think that generally just helps in the trade tapers. Well, I'm not.

Paul Laursen (27:53)

Yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (28:09)

so anxious and I'm just focusing on still on the small steps that I can take right at the moment and not just think about the race day that is looming.

Paul Laursen (28:23)

Yeah, because it's a really important point, right? So now when we go back to the principles of the taper, we learned that the volume is reduced. So we learned that we're going to have more time on our hands. So what happens when we have more time on our hands and we're not as active? Well, you're right. Yeah, we have all of a sudden have more time for our thinking brain to our default mode network to do its ugly tricks to us. The default mode network is this three part

place in your brain that basically circles around and it's your thinking brain and it leads to things like anxiety and depression. So you've got to, it's your monkey mind. So you need to get out of your monkey mind and yeah, mindfulness, being aware of again, all those feelings and everything that's going on is the practice of, yeah, to be able to kind of conquer those. It slows the

the default mode network down and allows you to bounce out of that. So yeah, pretty, it's cool. And yeah, it's definitely one that you wanna work towards. And it's, we'll never, until we're dead, we're gonna continue to work on that whole process, right? Like it never goes away, it never gets solved. So it's one of those things that you always have to kind of continue to go back.

back on training, no matter who you are. This is the human experience. And this is, I've recognized this is so important for me is, I've got a float tank in that room that I use in certain circumstances because I know that that's one thing that helps control my monkey mind and gets me practicing about being mindful.

Marjaana Rakai (30:16)

You can't do anything else than float for an hour or whatever, how long you float there. Oftentimes when we're tapering, we have these crazy thoughts like, did I do enough training? Or I should sneak in a little here and there, a little extra session. And then we start, our monkey brains are going, giving us thoughts of doubt and...

Paul Warloski (30:16)

you

Marjaana Rakai (30:43)

what do I feel now? Do I have a knee pain? All kinds of niggles and pain sensation come in the head. It's easy to start feeling sorry for yourself or angry and all the weird emotions that shouldn't be there.

Paul Warloski (31:02)

I think there's an element of part of that calming the monkey mind is an element of acceptance that you've done what you can and that there's no amount of training at this point that's going to extra training that's going to improve your fitness. And so the taper is that proverbial hay is in the barn and it's okay and that

Paul Laursen (31:03)

Totally.

Paul Warloski (31:30)

the level of acceptance to say, okay, I'm as good as I'm going to get, I'm ready. And then continuing to prepare the small things for your event is where more of that mental energy can go.

Paul Laursen (31:45)

Yeah, for sure. And the only one adjunct that I will add to this is something I learned in Andy Buscher's last build to Lanzarote. And that was walking. And he really added a lot of walking to his overall training throughout the whole thing.

Paul Warloski (32:07)

Mm -hmm.

Paul Laursen (32:14)

That was one thing that continued through the taper was just that walking. And I think it's for multiple reasons for all the, like it's probably, but a lot of it kind of comes down to the meditative reasons as well. It almost, the aerobic walking does something to, it's kind of calming and you still feel like you're doing something. And yeah, it kind of helps control the monkey mind a bit.

and you can solve a lot of problems when you're out there, right, Marjaana

Marjaana Rakai (32:46)

totally. But yeah, walking is so good. Like you have all this extra time in your hands. Walking is not like fatiguing. You get into your forest or like anywhere in nature by the lake, ocean, whatever. And you really you're in the moment. You solving all these problems in your head and and you feel good in the same time without, you know, adding extra fatigue. So walking for money.

Paul Laursen (33:13)

Yeah. Yeah. And the other and the final thing that, that, that goes, that we haven't mentioned that goes to, with walking and goes with mindfulness is the breath and the, and there's, there's a connection between all these, these, these different things. There's something about the breath, with walking and mindfulness, like those three sort of key things, they all go together.

and they can all help to coordinate your own wholism when you have all this extra time available. And they, yeah, they're gonna assist with your sleeping because sleep is gonna be a little bit more difficult sometimes with the taper sometimes because we actually, you actually build up sleep debt from a lot of your training. So it's, that's why if.

You know, oftentimes we sleep quite well because of our training. And then if you pull that away, sometimes you can actually not sleep so well for, well, one, it's you're stressed about the race, but two, you're also don't have that sleep depth that's been accumulated from all of your training. So it can be a double whammy and sleep of courses we've talked about in the recovery, section of the podcast. It's so vital to, to your overall recovery and performance. So, walking.

and focusing on the breath in a mindfulness kind of way, it's a great ingredient to add onto the taper. But not talked about much in very many programs.

Marjaana Rakai (34:52)

How should self -coach athletes monitor their progress during the taper and eventually pivot to another way if they feel like they've started too early, they get nervous that they haven't done enough or other way around like they feel like they are not getting rid of that fatigue and tiredness soon enough? Is there anything that they can monitor?

Paul Laursen (35:20)

Yeah, it's an awesome question. And that's something that we are working on in Athletica to develop for the future. And it's more of these retrospective reflections on what worked well for you, or what did you do and what did you get kind of thing, right? And this is a feature that we'll be adding in the future where we actually look at, we're looking at kind of results oriented performances coupled with

what the training looked like in the lead up to it. So at the moment, we don't have that feature yet available. So what I would recommend is just take stock of how that went. You've got your calendar in Athletica, so look back and observe what you did and how it went. And trust your gut in terms of what you're seeing and how it felt.

Marjaana Rakai (36:18)

I think that's a really important point because I've noticed a couple of comments and questions coming for us about taper and how to organize, like if they have ABC races and how Athletica organizes the weeks to give more focus on the A race taper and not necessarily much of a taper for the B and C races. A lot of athletes like to

Paul Warloski (36:18)

you

Marjaana Rakai (36:49)

you know, race several times. Specifically also the last couple of days, there are workouts that might not, not everybody have done those. Like there's a little bit of a level four and level five workouts there during the race week. And that might scare people off.

Can you touch on how Athletica organizes several races and the taper to them and then the last race week? Why is there so much high intensity just before the race and what should people do?

Paul Laursen (37:30)

Yeah. So again, the reason for the intensity in the final weeks relates to that fundamental principle that we spoke about. The research suggests that there's a maintenance of frequency and intensity in the final two weeks with a reduction in the training volume. So that's why we'll see level four and five sessions in there. This is what the research suggests. But to Paul's individual point, right, if that's

not appropriate for you, for your age, for any niggles or injuries that you might have, you need to back those off. But yeah, that's why those are in there. In terms of if you're racing a lot, remember, then you're gonna get a taper a lot. So keep that in mind if you've got a goal of a key A race.

you might want to allow for a decent period of a build before that to really build up that fitness. And that's one of the things that I know a lot of athletes have experienced because they tell me and they've stopped racing so frequently and they've kind of really just focused on a good build phase.

And because they might know that they're going to be in a certain, they're going to be at their home environment, which is always, it's often the best recipe for training success because you're always supported in your home environment. You're not traveling all the time in your job and you're able to get, source all your food and sleep really well. And when you keep stacking up all that training and then you, it just,

you really build a monster you, right? That you're able to tackle these big events. Whereas if you're traveling all the time or tapering all the time, there's a lot of breaks. You're losing that principle of consistency. And that can be maybe detrimental to the optimal build that you want. So just consider that when you're having a look at your overall plan for the year.

Paul Warloski (39:48)

Thank you.

Marjaana Rakai (39:48)

So instead of having like build up races, aim for the A race first and then maybe do the B and C races, because we love racing and we want to do those.

Paul Laursen (40:00)

Totally, yeah. I mean, I think it's good to experiment with that. There's a lot of a traditional way often in the trathlon type world is to do like a B race 70 .3 that might be a month or three weeks out from the A race Ironman. It's a great way to do it. But yeah, consider it another way as well. So consider putting the B race after the A race. And you can do that now in athletics as well.

Marjaana Rakai (40:29)

Yay!

Paul Laursen (40:29)

change that from a programming standpoint in the back end, which is great. So kudos to the team in Athletica for the hard work in making those adjustments.

Paul Warloski (40:37)

Yay.

Thank you.

Paul, how should we be looking at nutrition and hydration during tapering? Should we be doing anything differently for our diet or nutrition or hydration to enhance the benefits of tapering?

Paul Laursen (40:58)

that's a good question. So let's just have a look at this, like the situation in general is, you know, you've reduced volume, right? So in the context of this reduced volume, you might want to just be mindful of how much you're consuming. There is, there can be the tendency to overeat in this. So it's certainly, I mean, always, you know.

Always listen to hunger, always listen to thirst. If you're hungry or thirsty, you need to address that. But in terms of like absolute calories and stuff, you might not always be, if you're not doing monster five, six hour rides in that week, which you shouldn't be probably, but in the last few days, you probably don't need to eat the house down. So just eat what you need.

You know, and then the diet as we've spoken about before really depends on your philosophy. If you're a low carb athlete, you probably need less carbs in that week. If you're a high carb athlete, you probably need more carbs and that's, you know, a lot of the science in that realm would suggest that you wanna try to stock up your glycogen stores. So again, this is context, context over content.

That really depends on who you are and what you follow. And so just, yeah, trust in your own process, what you believe in, what you like. And yeah, Marjaana's coach, what do you, what do you, and athlete, what do you think from that perspective?

Marjaana Rakai (42:35)

I was just thinking that race organizers should have a keto party. Just meat and nuts and avocados. And then another party for the pasta people.

Paul Laursen (42:43)

That's right.

I know. I mean, that's a beauty, right? Like you think about what's available in some of those pasta parties, right? Like it's, that's why I, sorry, I don't go to them. I know a lot of, a lot don't as well because that's not optimal feeling for me, but that's what the majority out there will be having and good luck.

Marjaana Rakai (42:57)

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a social thing too.

Paul Laursen (43:15)

Which is so important, right? Like, absolutely. So you gotta find your tribe and yeah, hang out with your tribe and eat with your tribe.

Marjaana Rakai (43:17)

Yeah.

Paul Warloski (43:26)

You can just bring your own chicken instead of BYOB, bring your own chicken or beef or whatever you're eating, you know.

Marjaana Rakai (43:28)

I'm sorry.

Paul Laursen (43:31)

That's right,

Paul Warloski (43:33)

All right, so our takeaways for today's episode that tapers or reducing your training volume help reduce the psychological and physiological stress before an important event. Number two, most studies recommend five to 14 to 21 days of taper with reduced volume and maintained frequency and intensity. So you...

keep the same number of days, keep the intensity, but reduce the overall volume. But it's a very individualistic thing that will take some trial and error to figure out what works best for you. And number three, since you are reducing your training volume, there can be a tendency to eat a little too much, but listen to your hunger, listen to your thirst and eat what you need and pay attention to your hunger.

and make sure you're getting the kind of sustenance that you need for your event.

That is all for this week. Thank you for listening and join us next week for the Athletes Compass podcast. You can help us by asking your training questions in the comments, liking and sharing the podcast and giving us five star reviews and engaging with us on the social media. For Marjaana Rakai and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Wurlowski and this has been the Athletes Compass podcast. Thanks for listening.