I'm a first year volunteer coach at a small school and the season has been a great success. So much so, that we are the favorites heading into the State Championship next Monday.
I'm bouncing around a little bit with our final taper strategy, mainly because what we have done so far has worked well and we don't need to do anything extraordinary next week.
What is different is last weekend was the first time we didn't race all season. We did back off some mileage. I just planned to back off some more distance this week and keep intensity.
Our Middle school kids did race last week with no real taper and they all PB'd. They actually had 2 races last week. But they do run less miles throughout the season.
Just looking for any advise. Mainly, because we had the change in our schedule, but we also haven't run fully fresh either. We have run 10 races, so they are seasoned racers.
Here is what I changed last week and what I plan to do this week.
Last Week:
M: 7x 3 min sub-threshold w/1 min rest vs regular 10 intervals. 21 min vs 30.
W: 2 x 1 mile + 1200 + 800+ 400 threshold vs regular 4 x 1 mile. 3.5 miles vs 4.
F: 10 x 400m at 5k vs regular 5k race on Saturday. 2.5 miles vs 3.1.
T, Th, Sa: 45 min easy vs 50, 50, 70. 135 min vs 170.
Total was about a 20% reduction for both quality and easy
This week plan.
M: 3x1000 sub-threshold w/2 rest + 3 x 400 @5k w/3 min rest. 2.6 miles approx 18 min.
W: 3 x 800 + 3 x 400 at 5k with full rest. 2.25 miles approx 14 min.
F: 3 x 400 at 5k + 3 x 200 fast. 1.1 miles.
T, th, sa: 30 min easy. 90 total. Saturday will be mostly travel as it's 7 hours.
Sun: pre- race at the course.
Additional 30% reduction or about 50% total over regular season for both quality and easy.