Pre-race taper before Princess Half Marathon

[mjrosso]

Hello! I am signed up to run the Princess Half Marathon and have been following a customizable auto-generated training plan from runner's world's website. I started the plan a week early, mostly because I was overeager and also because I thought it might be good to have an extra week built in if I was sick/injured/lazy one week. I still have that week "out there". I'm questioning whether to stick in an extra easy week, possibly this week (I have been going pretty hard and it probably wouldn't hurt me to do some easier runs) or address another concern, that the plan doesn't really seem to "taper"? It has me running a 3 mile easy run, 2 mile easy run, 8 mile tempo run, 2 mile easy run and a 12 mile long run the week prior to the race, then some easy runs and even a 5 mile tempo run the week of the race itself... is this ok? Wondering if I should stick that extra week at the end and do an 8 mile run or something the Saturday prior to the race? If I do stick with my regular plan this week, I DO get a rest week next week anyway (18 miles worth of easy runs spread out over 4 days), so I could just power through...

I had originally signed up thinking that I would be thrilled to finish, had done a 10K in September in 1 hr 28 secs, and used this time to generate my times for this plan... it has me finishing the race in 2:11:22 and I had thought it was nuts, but based on my training runs, I'm beginning to think that could happen. I submitted my time at 2:17 and feel more comfortable about that, though.

Thanks for any help!

 

[cewait]

Hello! I am signed up to run the Princess Half Marathon and have been following a customizable auto-generated training plan from runner's world's website. I started the plan a week early, mostly because I was overeager and also because I thought it might be good to have an extra week built in if I was sick/injured/lazy one week. I still have that week "out there". I'm questioning whether to stick in an extra easy week, possibly this week (I have been going pretty hard and it probably wouldn't hurt me to do some easier runs) or address another concern, that the plan doesn't really seem to "taper"? It has me running a 3 mile easy run, 2 mile easy run, 8 mile tempo run, 2 mile easy run and a 12 mile long run the week prior to the race, then some easy runs and even a 5 mile tempo run the week of the race itself... is this ok? Wondering if I should stick that extra week at the end and do an 8 mile run or something the Saturday prior to the race? If I do stick with my regular plan this week, I DO get a rest week next week anyway (18 miles worth of easy runs spread out over 4 days), so I could just power through...

I had originally signed up thinking that I would be thrilled to finish, had done a 10K in September in 1 hr 28 secs, and used this time to generate my times for this plan... it has me finishing the race in 2:11:22 and I had thought it was nuts, but based on my training runs, I'm beginning to think that could happen. I submitted my time at 2:17 and feel more comfortable about that, though.

Thanks for any help!

I would play taper by ear. By itself, I do not personally taper for a half. For my first time runners, I will build a shorter week into a plan, especially if they are a little injury prone.

Looking at your times, I am not inclined to modify your plan except to lose the tempo run the week of the race. But then what do you do with your week? I would repeat a shorter pullback week sometime in the next month and get back on schedule.

Hope this helps

 

[mjrosso]

thank you for your help! I think I will go ahead and do this week as a "pull-back" week, then go back into the plan as you said. I was having a very slight amount of pain in my knee yesterday, so it's probably a good time to go easier.