The Art of Tapering

Posted on

 

Marathon training is really hard.  You have done long runs, tough interval sessions and plenty of hill runs.  When the time to taper comes it is a welcome relief after the gruelling weeks. 

How much does it help?

Ideally you want to begin tapering 2-3 weeks before the marathon (depending on the athlete). Some studies indicate that tapering can help as much as 20% on race day.

What is a good taper?

It is important to find the balance between tapering too much and too little.  Too much and you may find a drop in that well earned fitness you have built up.  Too little and you wont feel the benefit of the reduction in mileage and effort on race day.

How much should I taper?

We like to work off of the 10/15/50 principle.  This means that 3 weeks out you reduce your mileage by 10%, 2 weeks out its 15% and in the last week its 50%.  Everyone is different but we find this works for all of us in the Runderwear™ Team who are running in marathons.

Enter your email below to get 10% off your first order

You’ll receive an email - click confirm (takes 2.2 seconds) and you’ll receive your code.

No email? Contact us at hello@runderwear.co.uk

performance underwear
★ Read Our Reviews

Let customers speak for us

243 reviews
84%
(205)
8%
(20)
3%
(8)
2%
(6)
2%
(4)
Fantastic

These socks are the best running socks I have ever purchased

Good service, product is fit for purpose

Service is great, and the boxer shorts are good for running and so the job they are designed for. Little disappointed that they are not ethically sourced, they have a cheapish feel to them which was a surprise.

Thank you for your feedback Duncan. Runderwear's range of seamless underwear has sustainability benefits over cut and sew garments by reducing wastage of fabric at manufacturing stage. We are testing new fabrics that have been made using sustainable fibers and aim to bring these into our range in the near future. All our factories are quality control checked to the highest standard and our small team regularly visit them and are satisfied that working conditions are ok. We are somewhat surprised you find the pants have a cheapish feel to them. But maybe you mean that the material is not thick and when you stretch it and look up-close it has an almost gauze-like appearance; this is the nature of the product and gives it the moisture wicking properties. We hope you will like using them and will realize how comfy they are.

GreAt

Great!

Super comfy and stay in place. U.K. size 10 and ordered small.

C
Women's Running Long Shorts
Cassandra Kay-Lewis
At last... chaff free running.

Had just about given up with the belief there were running shorts out there that don’t chaff. Purchased the long shorts, and have to say they are wonderful. They are stable, breathable, comfortable and total chaff free.
I would like to highlight I was under the impression that these were “proper” shorts, however they could possibly be described as a base layer shorts. Some form of lightweight run shorts are recommended to wear over them to cover your modesty. Wearing my lightweight run shorts over the top of them didn’t detract from the long shorts benefits.
I typically run up to 21km.