Marathon Tapering

[Youreds]

Ho all, I did my last long run 3 weeks before the marathon I am set to do next week (Rome). I followed that up with two 10ks the following two days, but the have now not run for the last 10 days due to a flu that hit me while I was resting for a half marathon last Sunday. This means I have gone 10 days already, and the flu ( I will call it flu as I have little energy, usually I can run just fine with a cold). I am worried that It is going to effect my marathon. I had run 560km in the 10 weeks previous to falling ill. I just worry that I may be back to square 1, and it could seriously effect my performance. I am sure I will het better over next couple of days. Have any of you gone through marathon tapering without running much at all?

[Decker Ultramarathon]

I think Marathon taper is roughly two weeks? So it seems you might only be a week off. You’ve clearly put the front end of the work in so I would not stress too much about it. The enforced rest may even help with your cold and run recovery as opposed to training hard till the end. I’m sure the full mara folks will have some answers for you shortly.

[marco83 Marathon]

Hi, sorry to hear you were not feeling well. Hope you’re ok now. If you missed 10 days but you are back, how do you feel?

Any run? What was your marathon target ? Time? Finish it?

Her is my 2 cents ...

Do not skip the taper , it’s important to have it there, but get some quality run at marathon pace in there . Do not try to get back miles/km as you’ll just get tired. Taper as you planned .

Ten days is not that bad, trust me, you have lost some of your fitness but not all. You may need to adjust your pace to a few seconds per k slower but your initial hard work will pay off (do you use a heartbeat monitor?)

Keep calm and enjoy the process and the race set was probably the best suggestion I had in the past

[Youreds]

Thanks Decker and Marco! I will be going out for a marathon pace 8km today, my first run in 12 days. Will then do 5-7k every day until Thursday, before resting up for Sunday. The flu has gone, but the cold still lingers, althougg hopefully with the run, I will sort myself out. My target was to break 4 hours. In my 4 marathons, I have come to within 5-20 mins in each one, with freak weather conditions (24-30 degree heat playing their part in two of them).

Luckily, Sunday seems like perfect conditions, but I will be cautious from the start and try and build on it. I think my previous training stood me in good stead, but this week is very important as I don’t want to run the risk of losing my fitness completely. Anyway, thanks for your asvice again!