Tapering is gradually reducing training volume while maintaining intensity in the final weeks before a race. This allows the body to recover from fatigue and stress while retaining fitness and sharpness for race day. Most experts agree on a taper period of 3 weeks for a marathon, and proportionately less for shorter races.

This is a how-to episode that addresses three tapering secrets in the order one would typically focus on them. However, my recommendation is to keep all three in mind throughout your taper.

#1. Maintain Intensity and Reduce Volume

You want to reduce your mileage by 20-25% during the taper. For many runners, this would be something like 40-50 miles at three weeks out, then 30-40 the following week, and 20-30 for race week. Then, and this is important, make those reduced miles quality miles by maintaining intensity.

The overall taper effort should be enjoyable. Make this a playful period, a celebration of your hard work, and a preview of how you will perform on race day. The intensity keeps your mind and muscle fibers fresh. The reduced mileage allows muscles, joints, and connective tissues to fully recover.

Examples of reducing volume but maintaining intensity are trimming your marathon pace tempo run from 6 to 4 miles, or possibly a pair of 2-mile tempo segments with a 1-mile jog between them. The goal is to lock in the feeling of running at the tempo pace without taxing the body more than necessary.

#2. Replenish and Refresh Your Body and Mind

The body and mind work together as one. You cannot be sharp on race day if you are mentally fatigued. Since a marathon is more mental than physical, be intentional about relaxing your mind during the taper.

Get to bed earlier and take naps. Practice some yoga and meditation. Race anticipation can create anxiety, but that anxiety can be managed by giving your mind and body what they need, hydration, nutrition, rest and sleep. Focus on those functions and protect your mental state by doing what gives you confidence.

Finally, be sure to practice easy body movements to lubricate tissues and encourage blood flow that circulates nutrients and flushes out metabolic wastes. For more on this, check out this podcast’s Episode #11.

#3. Visualize and Rehearse Race Strategy and Readiness

This is the ultimate secret to your racing success. The months of training are nothing more than potential gains. You must take the additional steps of translating them into real gains with planning.

This is what professional runners do. They practice daily visualization to put their minds at ease, imagining different scenarios and how they may play out. The science is clear about this – our minds don’t distinguish between visualization and direct experience. So, if more experience is valuable, you can get it with visualization.

How do you want to feel on race day, strong, fresh, and confident? One way to practice this is to view your taper workouts as sections of your race. For example, slow miles reflect the beginning of the race, tempo miles the middle, and faster intervals the closing stretch.

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Nutrition is a sensitive topic, and I respect that. We all have our beliefs, habits, and food preferences. My purpose is not to change your diet, but to help you make the best choices for your desired lifestyle as it relates to running and longevity.

So, let’s discuss a couple of foods with unique properties. One is a food that most of us wouldn’t even consider a food. The other is a category of vegetables with unique longevity properties.

Let’s start with the category because you know these vegetables, but the seldom discussed category is what sets them apart.

#1. Cruciferous Vegetables

Cruciferous vegetables are a category that includes broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, and kale. They are all composed of glucosinolates, sulfur-containing compounds unique to this family of plants.

When consumed, glucosinolates are broken down into cancer-fighting properties. So, if you plan to age long and well, these foods should interest you.

#2. Flaxseed

Flaxseed is not what most people would consider a food, but that should change once you understand its nutritional profile. You should purchase flaxseed crushed, in a meal form, to readily access its benefits.

a. Rich Source of Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Flaxseed is one of the richest plant sources of Omega-3s. These are the essential fatty acids that the body cannot produce on its own, so they must be obtained from the diet.

Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to reduce inflammation and muscle and joint pain, while speeding up recovery time. That alone should be enough for runners to consider adding it to their daily diet.

b. Plant-Based Source of Good Fats

Flaxseed replenishes the good fats that are vitally important for endurance. These good fats also contribute to our HDL cholesterol – that’s the good cholesterol that maintains healthy blood pressure, and lowers triglyceride levels.

c. Source of Cancer-Fighting Lignans

Flaxseed is one of the best sources of lignans, which are cancer-fighting plant compounds with antioxidant properties.

Lignans have proved beneficial for reducing, and more importantly, reversing both breast and prostate cancer.

Flaxseed is high in all but one of the nine essential amino acids our bodies need for protein synthesis.

The effects of nutrition are cumulative, and higher value foods matter. For example, research proves that eating healthy foods such as broccoli side by side with less than healthy foods will negate some of thier negative effects.

If you would like to study flaxseed and cruciferous vegetables further, you’ll find more resources than you can imagine at nutritionfacts.org.

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All your training works together to produce desired results. Runners respect this and do their homework on training plans, nutrition, and the nuances of running shoes, to name a few.

Yet, when was the last time somebody asked you about your sleeping habits? Maybe it's because that’s considered too personal. However, it’s something we should inquire about because it’s vitally important for maximizing the value of all the other inputs.

#1. Establish Your Baseline

Only you know how many hours of sleep you really need. This may not be possible on weekends before early morning long runs, but a late morning or afternoon nap should come close to making up the difference.

#2. Respect Your Limitations

Getting in bed by a specific time sets the routine and conditions your sleep system. Later than that compromises the quality of your sleep, thereby resulting in some fatigue the next day.

Find what works for you and refine your practice as necessary.

#3. Back Away from Media

The goal is to tune into your body and mind before bedtime. Light stretching or yoga are ways to encourage this. For non-practitioners, the primary purpose of yoga and meditation is bringing your attention inward.

For more details on body awareness, check out this podcast’s Episode 11.

#4. Consider Natural Supplements

Magnesium Threonate and L-Theanine are two supplements commonly recommended for improving sleep.

Magnesium Threonate has the unique quality of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which provides additional benefits – one of them is improving sleep quality. L-Theanine is an amino acid commonly found in tea leaves, particularly green tea.

Please do your research and/or consult with a physician familiar with your medical history before taking these or any other supplements.

5. Avoid Time Awareness

Time awareness creates anxiety. Just changing your environment may be enough to reset, but doing some stretching or yoga will help to reconnect the mind with the body.

My view is that struggling to sleep means the mind and body are disconnected. Your mind is somewhere else, it’s distracted. So recenter it.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe by going to runninglongevitylab.com and clicking on the Follow tab. If you have another minute, please consider leaving a review on Apple to help new listeners find the show. Just click the Rate Podcast tab.