The week contains three quality sessions: yesterday's intervals, today's tempo and Sunday's marathon pace endurance run. I definitely don't want to water down the quality elements of those but I do want to reduce training volume to 80-85% of last week's. That's my concession to the taper.
So at the moment I plan to:
- Keep the 8.5 miles at marathon pace today but may drop 0.5 - 1.5 miles of the 4 miles of warm up/cool down (like I did with the intervals)
- Definitely drop the core stability work and the 2 mile recovery run from Saturday to make it a rest day
- I might cut a mile off Sunday's 16 mile run but if I do it'll be a recovery mile.
If I just drop Saturday's run I'll be at 85%. If I take out another 2.5 miles from today and Sunday I'll be at 80%. Likelihood is I won't decide what to do with those runs until I'm doing them.
I am definitely going to be taking out a couple of miles from next week and the week after though. Theoretically, next week should be 50% of last week's mileage but I can't see any way to get it below 61% and even that relies on me squeezing out more than just warm up/cool down/recovery miles. So, I'll be dropping both cross training days for rest days (but retaining the stretching and core work). Close enough.
Yesterday, was cross training and core day. Legs felt slightly tired later in the day (contributing to the decision to go for rest tomorrow) and glutes have very slight soreness today. Neither will interfere with today's tough old tempo run though.
3 comments:
Interesting reading! I have a while to go until mine but I bet I would be tinkering around too!
I'm learning so much while following your training about the science of running. I just put one foot in front of the other and that's it, but it's so interesting to read the way you plan everything meticulously...I guess everyone's approaches are different as I've never been much of a 'thinker' when it comes to exercise (or perhaps anything else for that matter :P)
I would liken your training to a finely tuned F1 racing car and mine to a scruffy, beat up drag racer ;)
xxx
"Likelihood is I won't decide what to do with those runs until I'm doing them."
Sounds like a wise plan -- see how you feel once you're out there.
Why not drop a run next week instead of a XT day? Surely in cutting back the idea is to reduce strain on your body. Which is precisely the point of the XT sessions. I'd be tempted to do those over a run, to get some activity in without the impact. I guess it's all swings and roundabouts though...
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