1 week to go

With the completion of this morning run, I completed the second week of taper. The mileage has dropped like this:

• Peak week: 106km
• First week of taper (last week): 81km
• Second week of taper (this week): 61km 

I've made little modifications to my runs leading in the lead-up and have deliberately run a little less than planned this week and also changed the nature of a couple of the runs. Tapering is quite a personal thing. There are standard principles that go with it but you'll see many different strategies within it. Some basically have easy runs without any workouts. While some just have shorter but faster runs. I've always taken the difference in philosophies as from a lot of different people's experiences. Many online sources are generally going to be read by people doing their first marathon, so it goes more for safety and running solidly to completion than running for best performance. 

My own experience of tapering, like everyone I guess, has been a learning curve. Here are each of my marathon tapers (note: when I talk about the result, I'm not saying that taper is everything, but it does colour how I look at how the taper went. I also don't include the kilometres in the week of the marathon which are usually minor and easy):

1. Oct 2017, Auckland Marathon: Not a great taper, influenced by ITB issues the week before peak week (PW): PW: 82km; 1W: 52km: 2W: 48km. Result: Hit the wall badly and walked parts to end with 3:47.
2. Sep 2018, North Shore Marathon: A complicated taper because peak week was two weeks before taper because the usual peak week was a half marathon that I wanted to taper for; then a trip in Fiji in the first taper week which finished with a bout of food poisoning. So PWs: 103km then 83km; 1W: 64km (Fiji), 76km. Result: Hit the wall badly, terrible stitch, ended with 3:44.
3. Oct 2018, Auckland Marathon: An interesting taper because this marathon happened just 8 weeks after the preceding marathon, so tapering happened barely after recovery from the previous: PWs: 89km then 81km, 1W: 80km, 2W:69km; Result: Finally ran the whole distance with a time of 3:29 
4. May 2019, Rotorua Marathon: Perhaps the most disturbed taper with a business trip to China. Also it was disturbed by a half marathon in the normal peak week so I tapered for that first. So PWs: 98km, 64km (HM), 1W: 97km 2W: 51km (China). Result: A surprise PB with 3:27.

My own learning? There is nothing really that can be generalised from this. Doing events in the lead-up has been an advantage in the last two marathons. But was not auspicious in my second marathon.  Even high mileage in the 1W isn't an issue. I'll learn something more from this taper because it's the most "typical" taper possible, and follows theory the most. Let's see if theory works.