How to Peak and Taper for Running Races

Written by Scott Douglas

A good training program has phases that build on each other to prepare you for one or more goal races. The final two phases, peaking and tapering, can be the most difficult to get right—many runners do too much or too little during these crucial weeks, and they reach race day unable to make full use of their fitness. In this post, we’ll look at peaking and tapering for races from 5K to the marathon. The details will differ depending on your target race, but the underlying principles are the same.

Peak Preparation

Peak training is the hardest part of a training program. It’s when your volume and intensity are generally the highest of your buildup.

If you’ve built systematically toward these few weeks, they can be one of the most satisfying parts of your program. The work you’ve done until this point can enable hard workouts and weekly mileage you weren’t capable of a couple of months earlier. Nailing these sessions can increase your confidence for race day.

The key part of peak training is improving your ability to hold goal pace for your target race. That’s true whether you’re prepping for a 5K, 10K, half marathon, or marathon. Let’s use the 5K to illustrate this point.

In the early phases of a good 5K program, you’ll touch on goal 5K pace almost from the beginning. You’ll probably start with moderate sessions, such as eight repeats of 400 meters or 2 minutes at goal pace. Then you’ll probably do more reps—12 to 16—while keeping the length of the reps the same. The length of your reps will start to increase, such as 800 meters or 4 minutes, while the total volume of work at goal pace will stay the same (often between 3 and 4 miles). By your peak phase, your reps at goal pace will be even longer, usually topping out at a mile. A workout of three or four one-mile reps at 5K goal pace is really hard! You wouldn’t have been able to do it earlier in your program, but now you can. One or two workouts like that in the month before your goal race will provide a huge boost to your fitness and confidence.

The same idea applies to other goal races. A 10K runner might do four or five repeats of 1 mile to 2,000 meters at goal pace; a half marathoner might build to a 6-mile tempo run at goal pace; a marathoner will have one to three runs that include 10 to 12 miles at goal pace.

During this time, these race-specific workouts are the most important part of your program. For 5K and 10K runners, weekly mileage might drop a bit from your biggest weeks, to ensure you can hit and hold goal race pace in workouts. For half marathoners and marathoners, however, weekly mileage should be close to the highest of your buildup; after all, for those races, the volume of your training is as important as the intensity of your training.

The important thing during this time is to do enough volume to preserve or even improve your basic endurance, but not at the expense of the quality of your race-pace workouts. If necessary, go slower than usual on the days before and after your hardest and longest runs.

Taper Time

After peak training comes tapering, which entails gradually reducing your mileage while maintaining the intensity of your training.

There are two words in the above sentence that merit repeating: “gradually” and “intensity.” Tapering doesn’t mean suddenly doing nothing but occasional short jogs. One goal of tapering is to undo the accumulated wear and tear of your hardest training so that you feel fresh on race day. But that goal needs to be balanced with the goal of maintaining or even slightly improving your fitness. The solution: Gradually reducing your mileage over the course of your taper and continuing to do some faster running.

Here are typical tapers for popular distances, with length and mileage reductions:

• Marathon: 3 weeks (70-80% of peak mileage third week before race; 60% of peak mileage second week before race; 35-40% of peak mileage the week that ends on race day)

• Half marathon: 2 weeks (60-75% of peak mileage second week before race; 50% of peak mileage the week that ends on race day)

• 5K and 10K: 1 week (50-60% of peak mileage the week that ends on race day)

During this time, stick to your typical schedule of harder workouts and longer runs. But cut back the volume of those sessions by 50 to 65% of your peak efforts. For example, if your longest run in your half marathon training was 18 miles, you might go 10 miles one week before race day. Similarly, if one of your hardest workouts in your 10K training was four 2,000-meter repeats at goal pace, you might do two 2,000-meter reps with a week to go.

Two or three days before your race, add a few 1-minute bouts of faster running at the end of an easy run. Go a little faster than goal race—half marathon pace if you’re tapering for a marathon, 5K pace if you’re tapering for a 10K, etc. You’ll likely finish this run fresher than you’ve felt in weeks. Carry that good feeling into race day.

Scott is a contributing writer for Runner’s World and Outside and the author or co-author of several running books, including Advanced Marathoning and Running is My Therapy.