Tappering

Siguiendo las indicaciones del post de Luis, ahí va un articulillo que me ha mandado sobre Zatopeck y el tappering. Muy oportuno ya que escribo estas líneas desde el lecho del dolor, adonde me ha arrastrado no una rubia explosiva, sino una maldita gripe, de las de antibiótico, incluso para un defensor de la homeopatía como yo. Estoy deseando que a la vuelta de Londres se pueda empezar a hablar del Carcasona Phenomenon!!! :-) :-) :-)

Just a few weeks before the 1950 European Track Championships, Cech great Emil Zatopek came down with a case of food poisoning. It seemed he had eaten some bad goose at dinner.
The food poisoning was so bad it forced Zatopek into the hospital, where he was bed-ridden for several days leading up to the Europeans and unable to run.
The "Cech Locomotive" was used to stomping through the forest in his army boots, or running in place while on sentry duty, or doing track sessions such as 100 x 400 meters. (That is a story for another day). When he was released from the hospital just before the championships, Zatopek worried he had lost fitness. That was not the case, however. On race day Zatopek felt great. Fully rested, his strong body had finally absorbed the countless miles he had put in through the forests surrounding Prague. He won the gold at the European 10,000 meters, finishing with the world's second-fastest time.
From then on, such a forced rest before a race has been known as "the Zatopek Phenomenon." There have been many examples of how resting can improve race performance, and as many locals begin their taper for the Sept. 30 Boulder Marathon or the Oct. 14 Denver Marathon, or another of the fall big-city marathons, they would do well to keep the "Zatopek Phenomenon" in mind.
The good news is you don't have to eat a spoiled goose to get some rest. Rather, you just need the discipline to back off your mileage, while keeping some speed in your legs. Easier said then done, as an article in the May/June issue of "Marathon & Beyond" points out.
"For me, tapering is the most difficult part of training for a marathon," Stephanie Kinnon writes in an article titled "The Terror of Tapering."
"Yes, I find it tougher to spend three weeks resting than I do slogging through a grueling multi hour run. ... What is supposed to be a relaxing time to rest and recover is for me a time of intense anxiety."
Kinnon goes on to describe the fear she feels, that resting will ruin her race. "I fear my legs will stiffen from lack of use and that by race day they will have forgotten how to run. ..."

That will not happen, of course, as local marathoner Misty Cech described recently as she was drawing up a three-week taper for Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and also an accomplished marathoner. He and Boulder runners Jon Pratt and Eric Cech are all running the Oct. 6 Chicago Marathon in an attempt to break three hours.
"I want them to decrease their volume but keep some turnover in their legs," Cech said.
To that end, she has Rinpoche and his fellow runners cutting their mileage roughly in half over the next three weeks, with a couple of workouts at 10K race pace. Then, in the final week leading up to Chicago, they will run a decreasing number of 400 meters at 10K race pace, each day of the week preceding the marathon.
Scientific studies back up Cech's contention. In another "Marathon & Beyond" article, titled, "Hey! Back Off!" coach Jason Karp, a Ph.D. candidate in exercise physiology, writes, "You can reduce your weekly mileage dramatically during the taper as long as you keep the intensity high. Reductions in mileage of up to 60 to 90 percent have been found beneficial during the taper period."
Karp summarizes findings from 10 scientific studies to show how a low-volume/high-intensity taper results in better racing than either tapering with no running at all or doing a low-volume taper with no speedwork.
Now, if you are running the Boulder, Denver or Chicago Marathons and your goal is simply to finish, tapering does not matter much.
But, if you want to race to break three hours, set a personal best, or even earn a spot on the 2008 Olympic Team — as is the goal for locals Ed Torres, James Carney, Alan Culpepper and Justin Young Nov. 3 in New York City — Karp's findings can be summed up as follows:
Reduce your weekly mileage in the two to four weeks leading up to your marathon.
Run some intervals to keep up your training intensity.
As the marathon nears, cut down on the number of repeats in your interval session.
And finally, in the end, remember the taper is the reward for all your hard work. As "Marathon & Beyond" editor Rich Benyo puts it in an editorial:
"For the good runner, hard work is a must — as is hard rest."