TAPER? HOW & WHY?

Properly, your taper should begin next Monday, and continue through the following two weeks. It’s pertinent to discuss this now for planning purposes.

The idea of a taper is based on the following principals.

• The body can not incorporate training stresses in less than two weeks.
• Training loads are a stimulus ~~ the body responds by growing stronger while resting
• An athlete needs most to be well rested when event time arrives.
• The body does not respond well to any sudden change of routine

So how do you taper, and what do you expect from it?

A taper is a gradual reduction of training load in order to rest the body and be fully recovered for the event. To accomplish this, next week reduce both the volume of training, and especially the intensity of training. Generally, you should ride between eight and ten hours next week. More importantly, those rides should be at a greatly reduced effort level. There should be no anaerobic work, no high zone aerobic work, and only a little (less than two hours total) of mid zone aerobic work during the entire week. Most of the week should be focused on very low effort spinning.

The last week prior to the Audax Ride, you should reduce the volume still farther. Only about five hours total riding time, and most of that before Thursday. No Riding on Thursday or Friday. The odd thing is that you may do one short workout ride of moderately high intensity on Monday. By this we mean, you may ride for one hour in the mid-aerobic zones, with as much as five minutes of Lactate threshold work. (NOTE: Do not do more than this!)

What can you expect from this kind of schedule? To begin with, the first two or three days of next week you will feel tired, and slightly out of sorts. You may feel like you aren’t getting enough rest, even though you are doing less work. This is a normal response to the reduced effort after a longer period of training.

By the end of next week you will start to feel like you are recovering and well rested. You may find yourself feeling a little frisky, and very energetic. You may start to experience a heightened sense of awareness and alertness. Expect this feeling of power and well being to become very pronounced along about Monday and Tuesday of the following week.

WARNING! That sense of heightened power can trip you up. Resist the urge to use the power! Be disciplined and continue to follow the plan. Do not give in to the temptation to “just do a little more” on your one short higher output ride. Please do not go longer or stronger. You will be tempted to do so. Be steadfast. You want to carry that power and solid rested feeling into the weekend, so that it is yours to use on the Ride.

Use Thursday and Friday to go over your gear and make your last checks. Get everything done by the middle of the day on Friday. Then get a good night’s sleep Friday night and the ride will be yours to enjoy.