Hi all!
Today I ran my last long run before the NN Marathon Rotterdam 2025. Which will be hosted in exactly two weeks.
With today’s run I completed my first of 3 taper weeks, where I reduced my weekly distance from 100 km last week to 74 km - next week I will further drop the distance to roughly 50 km.
This week was a fun and productive week - where I was able to do multiple tempo runs and set my target race day pace. The downside of multiple tempo runs is that it is taxing. In order to compensate for that I picked a recovery paced long run (bpm +/- 138) for today - which was welcome especially with the hour less sleeping time (daylight saving time).
Further more based on the “train low, race high” nutrition principle I ran on an empty stomage today without bringing any food with me. I did bring some water (+ electrolytes) with me. The idea is that you train feeling comfortable while running low on energy - that way you become more efficient in that regards and build some mental toughness. When you then run with your custom nutrition plan you should be well prepared against bonking at 34 km (ofcourse just in theory 😅)
My run today was beautiful, the sky was grey there was a strong wind and it seemed it could start raining at any time but that felt nice! The temperature dropped a bit and felt refreshing!
Second taper week;
(Source: advanced marathoning - pete pfitzinger)
The middle colomn (1 week to go) gives the guidelines for next week. As you can see it provides another reduction in suggested weekly kilometers and an increased focus on recovery. Sounds like a fun week ahead!
Happy running!