Hey guys! Need advice--I'm doing the 4.4 mile Bay on June 10th. What are your thoughts on when I should peak and start to taper? I've done the event twice before and have peaked about a week and a half out and that's worked okay. This year my training has been more rigorous and structured and I'm wondering if I should be peaking and tapering earlier or later. Thanks for any advice you might have!
I am not an open water swimmer by any stretch of the imagination but I swim lots of distance and I have found that if my taper is longer than 2 weeks I suffer and this year I tried a 7 day taper and I sort of hit...my 1st day of the meet was ok but by day 4 I was doing best times...
I think that taper is different for everybody but for me I do better when I have a shorter taper that drops yardage than a long one that is drawn out.
Everyone hits taper differently and, yes, age is a factor. When I was in high school/college, a one week taper suited me fine. Now, I find 2 or even 3 weeks works best. Since 1 1/2 weeks worked in your past, but you've increased the intensity this year, I'd try the 2 week taper. The added intensity may required more rest to hit the taper. Good Luck.
Thanks for the advice! Although I was hoping that you would all say to start tapering now so that I could avoid any more 7000+ training swims. Lame of me? Probably. Oh well...:doh:
Daisymack, I have found it beneficial the last two years to just make sure I stay in the pool regularly and work at distance free. I've been mainly focusing on keeping the intensity steady for the duration of the workout and keeping the yardage high, but not insane either. Its tough to taper to 4.4 miles, but it certainly is beneficial to be resting up the few days leading up to it. I will usually swim a normal practices leading up to the weekend and back off the intensity on the Thursday before the swim; I can't recall ever getting in between then and Sunday morning.
See you on the beach!
Daisymack-
So many variables to a taper. I'm doing the Bay Swim, too (5th time). I plan on doing about 3 miles in the Severn River this Sunday, pool recovery on Monday and my last hard pool workout will be Tues. The rest of the week I'll work on negative splitting sets of 400's and 800's. Stay in the water; just ease off.
As a D-swimmer in college we used to say taper was for sprinters but that was mainly to torque them off!
Good luck on the 10th!!
Tree
Oh yeah- resist the temptation to go water skiing the day before like I did the first time I did the GCBS.
Have been reading these posts with great interest as I approach only my third lake swim, a 2km. I'm a runner turned to part-time swimming only a couple of years ago. Typical 2-4 swim workouts/week (typical 1200-2000y in each) and 3-5 running workouts/week (typical 4-6mi each).
I've really cut back on running past two weeks, trying to keep the "feel" of being in the water that I seem to loose if after a few consecutive days running. Past few swim workouts have been really slow after a good one last Saturday as I've tried to get into longer (800-1000y) swims at pace preparing for the 2km. Does this qualify as a "taper"?
What I read here in advice:
Eat and sleep well, especially few days prior to race
Cut back on the cross-training (running)
Be well hydrated before race
Start the race at a moderate pace
Feel like I did as a teenager going to my first big race! Any other words of wisdon? Not going to be in the hunt for awards, just looking to do well compared to my prior 1.2 swim (45:42 -- yes I am a slogger).
