Taper is here!
Which means that the hardest trainings are all done and it is time for recovery and race day prep. For me personally , taper is the most difficult phase in the trainingsblock, I will have to control myself not to do too long or too heavy runs. While the trainingsload should be lower, the goal is to maintain the same intensity (only shorter).
Today my goal was to do the following schedule:
Warm up:
- 3 km run at low heartbeat (<142 bpm)
- 4x 20 sec strides (@3:30 / km) | 60 sec jog in between
- 3 min run at low heartbeat (<142 bpm)
Interval (4x)
- 5 min running @ 4:05 - 4:15 / km
- 3 min recovery jog
Cooling down
- 3 km easy pace
My results on the strides & 5 min blocks:
The run was a fun way to do a low intensity marathon specific tempo block. The weather here was again stunning! November sun with the beautiful autumn colors!
Right now my main focus on race day prep is to understand why I got severe cramps in Rotterdam 2024, 2025 and Amsterdam 2024. This was not something I was familiar with despite running marathons for 10 years now. In all these instances my Quads cramped insanely. At first I thought it was just “the wall” but I didn’t fatigue. Was it salt deficiency or dehydration or just not enough upper leg strenght?
My guess is that it was dehydration & salt deficiency that caused it. I feel my legs are strong enough and my nutrition plan carb wise was perfect. In my februari 2025 and mid April 2025 I didn’t experience any cramps here the temperature was lower (causing less sweat?). Still some reseach into completely understanding it, but already finetuning my race day nutrition plan (including salt and hydritation levels).
Hapoy running!