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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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Tapering has some strange and unexpected effects. You would think that lowering your training would leave you feeling great, with boundless energy and enthusiasm. For most people, the opposite is true. We feel sluggish, lethargic and slow. New aches and pains suddenly appear and we can feel like a simple walk is hard work. This can lead to fear that our fitness has disappeared, or that we have a strange new illness. In reality, I suspect this is just the fact that our bodies are used to a higher level of training stress and the lower levels feel strange. It may also be higher levels of glycogen in the muscles which make our legs feel heavy. There is also the phenomenon that the shorter runs during the taper seem much harder than expected. This is probably because that a 5 mile run is easier than a 10 mile run, we expect it to be trivial, which it's not. Whatever the explanation, for most of us tapering is not the nirvana we would like. The term 'taper psychosisMain article: [[Taper Psychosis]]'' seems appropriate!
→Psychological effects of tapering
Like many ultrarunners, I do far more races in a year than typical marathon runners. This race load means that a longer taper is impractical. Therefore, for a short ultra (up to 50 miles), I take the day before the race off completely and convert that week's hill training to a flat run. For longer races, I'll reduce my Monday and Wednesday runs to one hour rather than three, avoid hills and take Friday off. (I normally only run Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.)
= Psychological effects of tapering =
Tapering has some strange and unexpected effects. You would think that lowering your training would leave you feeling great, with boundless energy and enthusiasm. For most people, the opposite is true. We feel sluggish, lethargic and slow. New aches and pains suddenly appear and we can feel like a simple walk is hard work. This can lead to fear that our fitness has disappeared, or that we have a strange new illness. In reality, I suspect this is just the fact that our bodies are used to a higher level of training stress and the lower levels feel strange. It may also be higher levels of glycogen in the muscles which make our legs feel heavy. There is also the phenomenon that the shorter runs during the taper seem much harder than expected. This is probably because that a 5 mile run is easier than a 10 mile run, we expect it to be trivial, which it's not. Whatever the explanation, for most of us tapering is not the nirvana we would like. The term 'taper psychosis' seems appropriate!
=See also=
