in: Orienteering; Training & Technique;
| # Posted 2008-10-29 02:31:09 | |
| Nikolay: | How do you prepare for an important race that you have been looking forward and training hard for months? What do you do in the last 1 - 2 weeks for an important sprint, middle or long orienteering race? What about the much hyped "All new coming to a town near you in 2010 S/M/L race format"? Do you just follow any run of the mill 5 ,10 and Half marathon taper advices readily available on the net and books, or have the special 'Joe the plumber' (it is a hip phrase to use these days, and I have been itching to plug it in somewhere in a natural conversation...) secret tapering technique you follow prior to a big event.
(And please, no carboloading and pre-race food advices :) ) |
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| # Posted 2008-10-30 10:00:42 | |
| fletch: | Highly personal as to what works. Some people I have trained with have very light training loads for a wek or 2 before major races. i found this often led to me getting sick and/or feeling flat, so I prefer to cut training volume and intensity in the week before a race, but not too much. Nothing worse than doing absolutely nothing for 2 or 3 days before a comp. |
| # Posted 2008-10-30 20:27:02 | |
| ebuckley: | While I certainly taper for V02-max efforts like a duathlon or 1/2 marathon, I've found that I navigate better if my legs are not at peak. I generally train through orienteering races, even big ones. I suppose there are those few who can run at their limit and still navigate accurately, but I do much better if I knock it back a notch. |
| # Posted 2008-10-30 23:20:49 | |
| boyle: | I agree. I find that the navigation in my O event is much better if my leg speed is compromised. |
| # Posted 2008-10-31 07:51:16 | |
| coach: | I like the 3 and 6 day tapers outlined in Runner's World many years ago. |
| # Posted 2008-10-31 17:48:10 | |
| Old_Fox: | Nice Comment Coach........*grin*
Don't you think it's missing something? Any chance of a link maybe, or the general idea of what the article said....... Agree with Eric and boyle - less than optimal legs better naviagtion |
| # Posted 2008-11-01 01:03:54 | |
| GregBalter: | I have the tapering article from runners world - if I am not mitaken, it was by Owen Anderson. Here is a link with some info:
http://www.runningnetworkarchives.com/runwashingto... |
| # Posted 2008-11-01 01:29:22 | |
| GregBalter: | to ebuckley and boyle: both have to work on your speed orinteering technique - you are seriously underperforming in O-races if that is your aproach. |
| # Posted 2008-11-01 03:58:20 | |
| coach: | Yeah, meant to add this. May be a bit hard to see as it's a scan of the magazine page. (Go to flickr and you can blow it up)
This one IS by Owen Anderson. 
What I like is it's easy to remember. Each session is 2/3 or 1/3 of the average of what you had been doing each week. The critical thing is to keep the intensity the same, as high as in typical hard training days. |
| # Posted 2008-11-02 07:17:01 | |
| ebone: | I do something similar to a 3-day or 6-day taper in the article above, but if I want to perform my best, I always run the day before a race. Maybe there's a very short-term effect related to aerobic enzymes, neuro-muscular coordination, glycogen storage, hydration, or something else. In general, it seems more important to rest a few days before a race than the day or two before, when I've sometimes done long or hard running with apparently beneficial (or at least not harmful) effect on my performance.
I've never tried running decreasing numbers of intervals, but I think one has to be careful not to do something that will result in tiredness or soreness, and since I virtually never run five days of intervals in a row, I'd be a bit nervous about doing that. From a pure running standpoint, I've had some of my best races on very little or no sleep, but that adversely affects my navigation. I'm disappointed in the lack of variety in the testing protocols described in the two articles referenced above. Can't one taper while running the day before a race? What about a protocol that had runners on a 5-day taper, where the volume and set of activities/days was the same among the various experimental groups, but the pattern was different, for example: Group A: day 1 -- 40 minutes easy day 2 -- 10 minutes warm-up, 4x400m at 5k race pace day 3 -- off day 4 -- 30 minutes at Marathon race pace day 5 -- off day 6 -- maximal effort/test Group B: day 1 -- off day 2 -- 10 minutes warm-up, 4x400m at 5k race pace day 3 -- off day 4 -- 30 minutes at Marathon race pace day 5 -- 40 minutes easy day 6 -- maximal effort/test Group C: day 1 -- 30 minutes at Marathon race pace day 2 -- 40 minutes easy day 3 -- off day 4 -- off day 5 -- 10 minutes warm-up, 4x400m at 5k race pace day 6 -- maximal effort/test ... et cetera |
| # Posted 2008-11-03 00:19:08 | |
| Nikolay: | if I want to perform my best, I always run the day before a race
Eric, I have noticed that too, and my taper routine for major races has been usually very close to Group C, with my Day 3 and Day 5 consisting of: 100, 200, 400, 200, 100 ladder intervals Longer easy running / warm up: 15 - 20 mins Running form exercises 10 - 15 mins |
| # Posted 2008-11-04 07:39:10 | |
| coach: | I don't think it's the maximal effort that would hurt you the day before a race, but how long you did that for. |
| # Posted 2008-11-05 03:51:44 | |
| GregBalter: | Gentelman, I want to point to the fact that it was one day race event that discussed in running tapering programm. It may not be the best for 2 or 3 races in a row, and I doubt you will find proper research on this. |
| # Posted 2008-11-05 10:16:05 | |
| TheInvisibleLog: | I generally have my best runs on the third day of a three day carnival. By then my legs are sore and I know I have to navigate well to make up for that. You could say that I am no longer under the illusion that running as fast as I can will help me. So for me, the first two days of competition are my taper. |
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