Guest Contributor: Coach Alli Felsenthal
You’ve done the workouts and logged the runs. You’ve practiced fueling, pushed through the hard days, and stacked weeks of consistent training. Now, your training plan is telling you to run less?! Welcome to the taper! The part of training when runners sometimes start questioning EVERYTHING.
The goal of tapering isn’t to gain more fitness at the last minute. It’s to give your body time to absorb the training you’ve already done so you arrive at the starting line on race day fully recovered, fueled, confident, and ready to race. Like the rest of your training, no single taper formula works for every runner. The taper is highly personalized and should be tailored to the athlete’s specific needs to prepare them best to optimize performance on race day.
What Is the Taper?
The taper is a planned reduction in your training load leading into race day. Depending on your goals for your upcoming half marathon or marathon, your training history, previous tapering experience, peak mileage, and how your body has responded to your current training block, the length and aggressiveness of your taper can look very different from another runner’s. There is something for everyone! What worked during your previous race build might not be the best option this time around.
The taper should be highly individualized to the athlete. If you’re training for a time goal, tapering allows your body to recover from accumulated training fatigue while maintaining the fitness you’ve spent months building. Think of it like a down week during a training cycle. You reduce the training load so your body can recover, adapt, and prepare for what comes next.
This is where supercompensation comes into play. After an appropriate training stimulus followed by adequate recovery, the body can adapt above its previous baseline. You’re not trying to build significant new fitness during taper week. You’re trying to uncover the fitness that’s already there.
Many athletes respond best to a week-long to 10-day taper with a sharper mileage reduction closer to race day for a half marathon. Your peak weekly volume matters, too, as does the distance you’re training for.
An athlete coming down from 70 miles per week has much more training volume to reduce than someone peaking around 40 miles per week. All of these variables, including training age, injury history, fatigue, strength-training load, life stress, sleep, and even how an athlete psychologically responds to running less, can influence the approach.
The goal is generally to reduce training fatigue without completely removing intensity, allowing your body to absorb the work from the training block while replenishing glycogen stores so you can run fast without hitting the wall, bonking, or running with heavy legs.
If you’re running a half marathon purely for fun, using it as part of another race build, or approaching the race without a time-based goal, your taper may look completely different. An experienced distance runner treating one marathon as a supported long run for another probably doesn’t need the same taper as someone targeting a half marathon PR.
TLDR: Everyone is different. No magic taper percentage works for every distance runner. Your taper should reflect your training volume, experience, race goals, recovery needs, and how your body responds to reduced training. Work with your coach or chat with your running friends to determine the strategy that helps you arrive feeling fresh, motivated, confident, fueled, and ready for your race.
Why Taper?
Because more training isn’t always more fitness. Especially when you’re days away from race day. At this point, the hay is in the barn.
Reducing your running volume, strength training, and other cross-training activities allows your body to recover from the cumulative stress of the training cycle. The objective is to decrease fatigue while maintaining the fitness and running economy you’ve developed throughout the build. This is where runners can get themselves into trouble.
You suddenly have extra energy. Your mileage drops and you start feeling restless. Your brain tells you to squeeze in one more hard workout because surely that will make you fitter. It won’t!
Your goal during taper isn’t to prove your fitness. Your goal is to protect it! A taper is as important as the hard work poured into your training. Treat it as such.
For example, I may reduce running volume substantially during race week to roughly 50–60% of an athlete’s normal training volume, but I don’t use one blanket percentage for every athlete.
Put the human before the athlete. Someone coming into taper feeling beat up from a demanding training block may need more recovery. Someone who tends to feel flat after several days of reduced running may benefit from maintaining slightly more frequency and intensity.
While volume comes down, I generally like to keep small amounts of intensity in the program. That doesn’t mean crushing a workout four days before your race. It means giving your legs enough faster running to maintain the rhythm, turnover, and confidence you need on race day. Keep the goal in mind to show up on race day morning feeling bouncy, not buried or flat.
How to Taper
Let’s use an athlete averaging approximately 45 miles per week as an example. Depending on the athlete, I might bring that volume down considerably during race week to about 25 to 30 miles, including the race, depending on how the week is structured. But again, that’s an example, not a one-size-fits-all approach.
I also like including a small tune-up workout early in race week to keep the legs moving without creating significant fatigue. For a half marathoner racing on Sunday, that might happen Tuesday or Wednesday and could include:
- 3 to 4 × 1K at a controlled race-specific effort with recovery allowing the runner to keep the workout controlled instead of racing it
- A short, controlled tempo segment around half-marathon effort
- Shorter race-pace intervals followed by easy running and 5 x 20-second strides
The theme here is controlled. Race week is not the time to test whether you’re suddenly fitter than you thought.
I may also give an athlete the option of one or two complete rest days during taper week, particularly after a demanding training cycle. Rest is part of training! I also try to preserve routines that have worked throughout the build. For example, if you’ve consistently taken a rest day before your long runs, suddenly forcing yourself to run the day before your race may not make sense. On the other hand, if you’re accustomed to running the day before harder efforts, a short shakeout approximately 24 hours before race time with a few controlled strides may help you feel loose and ready.
Race week isn’t the time to reinvent your routine. You’re reducing the workload and keeping enough routine in your days leading into your race so you can perform best when the time comes.
How to Taper PLUS. Don’t Forget About Fueling
Running less does not mean you suddenly need to eat significantly less. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see runners make during taper week.
Training volume decreases, runners become nervous about eating their usual amount, and they unintentionally reduce their energy and carbohydrate intake right when their bodies are preparing to race. Your body stores carbohydrates primarily as glycogen in your muscles and liver, and carbohydrate availability plays an important role in distance running races. During taper, reduced training demand combined with adequate carbohydrate intake helps maximize glycogen availability heading into race day.
This doesn’t mean you need to spend the entire week eating enormous bowls of pasta. At all. Heavy up on foods you’ve eaten during your training runs and around them too; just increase everything a little bit. Use what’s worked and don’t start introducing new foods into your diet. Research on distance running, training, and nutrition supports reducing training load before competing while maintaining appropriate intensity and ensuring adequate carbohydrate availability heading into distance running races/events. Carbohydrate stored as muscle and liver glycogen is a key fuel source during prolonged endurance exercise, so adequate fueling before and during a long race matters. (Burke, 2007).
Stick with foods you know sit well with you that you’ve practiced with during training. The same goes for your gels and hydration strategy, and when you plan to take them.
Your taper applies to training. It does not mean tapering your fueling. For distance runners especially, nutrition is part of your race preparation. Not an afterthought at the starting line.
When Should You Start Tapering?
There isn’t one answer, as there is no one-size-fits-all. For a half marathon, I often use a shorter taper because there is generally less accumulated fatigue and muscle damage from the training demands compared with a marathon build. Depending on the athlete, their training volume, and their goals, that might mean roughly a week to 10 days of reduced training.
The decision should consider your peak mileage, current feelings, race goals and distance, previous taper response (as applicable), life outside of training and running races, and training history. Higher-volume athletes have more training load to recover from. Experienced runners may respond differently to mileage reductions than newer runners unfamiliar with the distance.
Everyone is different, and you should treat the taper as such. These are useful generalized guidelines. Coaching the athlete means coaching the person first, not simply manipulating numbers on a training plan.
Final Thoughts
Race-week confidence doesn’t come from doing more. It can and should come from remembering what you’ve already done to prepare yourself for your race best. Trust your training and let your body recover. Eat, sleep, hydrate, and move enough to feel GOOD without throwing anything new into your routine. You’ve studied. Now it’s time to treat this like your final exam. Let your brain and body rest beforehand, and set yourself up for success. Allow yourself time to fuel up, rest up, and feel good, ready to toe the line for when it counts! Don’t forget to have fun; it’s not THAT serious!
Race-week confidence doesn’t come from doing more. It can and should come from remembering what you’ve already done to prepare yourself for your race best. Trust your training and let your body recover. Eat, sleep, hydrate, and move enough to feel GOOD without throwing anything new into your routine. You’ve studied. Now it’s time to treat this like your final exam. Let your brain and body rest beforehand, and set yourself up for success. Allow yourself time to fuel up, rest up, and feel good, ready to toe the line for when it counts! Don’t forget to have fun; it’s not THAT serious!
Disclaimer
Please note that the above insights and suggestions reflect a combination of RunWithAlli®-coached athlete experiences, research generalized to broader distance running populations, and Coach Alli’s own coaching and personal running experience. Individual responses to training, tapering, and nutrition vary. Always adapt recommendations to the athlete’s training history, health, experience, needs, and goals.
About the Author: Coach Alli Felsenthal
Founder of RunWithAlli Coaching, Alli Felsenthal is a certified run coach, lifelong athlete, and passionate advocate for helping runners feel strong, confident, and capable—on and off the road. With years of experience coaching athletes of all levels, she’s known for her practical, no-fluff training strategies, deep understanding of mindset, and her supportive, real-talk approach.
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