Making a mix taper

And so, after all these months of early mornings, solid training volume and simple hard work in the build up to Ironman Austria 2012 – my second Ironman – my taper has finally begun.

To the uninitiated wondering what the hell I’m talking about, the ‘taper’ is the period of recovery that comes just before a big race, when you allow yourself to scale back the training, letting the body to recover, so you arrive on the start line feeling healthy, rested and ready to rock.

To those who have done an Ironman before, however, the taper means something different. It’s a time of sluggishness, of last-minute panic that fitness is slowly but steadily seeping out of your body. It’s a period during which every single meal sticks straight to your tummy and your weight increases daily. It’s a time of insecurity, sleeplessness and general hatred for humanity but, more specifically, triathlon.

Triathlon and Ironman in particular create obsessives. We do so much training that we’re addicted to it. Our sense of self-worth and our self-image becomes wrapped up in what time we were doing for those 100m reps in the pool this morning, or how many kilometres we ticked off on the bike at the weekend. When that starts to get scaled down, it’s inevitable the lack of endorphins rushing about the body is going to make us feel a bit, well, erm… what’s the technical word for it again… erm, oh yeah… SHIT!

Then there’s the simple fact that with less time spent exercising, there’s more time to think about what you’re not doing, should have done, everyone else has done etc. It’s not merely proximity to the race that makes me much more nervous during the taper than I’ve been throughout the rest of the process, but having more time to think about it.

Having been through all this once before, I’m finding it easier this time. I know feeling a bit unfit and slow is normal. I know I’ll be fine come the big show. But I also have some idea of what does and doesn’t work.

You see, although you’ll get set training programmes with standard tapers, no two people are the same. For some, the ideal taper is as long as four weeks. For others, it’s two days; although I think the average is around two weeks.

I never enjoyed tapering back in my swimming days as a kid and it’s something that – following a one-size-fits-all plan – I got very wrong last time around before my first Ironman. While a little sluggishness and a bit of weight gain are inevitable, I basically felt like one of those fat American Jerry Springer people who have to be airlifted from the house… sluggish doesn’t get close. The weight gain was probably comparable to those Yankydoodlefatasses as well. To make up for this, I went out for a couple of sessions that were too long and too hard. It was a train crash of a taper.

This is one of the real benefits of having a coach this time around. Having discussed it with coach, I’ve not laid off the training to the same extent – there’s an extra day off this week and the sessions are a little shorter but, at the moment, they are still fairly intense. I think this is something that suits me but, also, as I’ve said before, my training for this Ironman has been more of a slow nine-month build rather than a traditional 12 week peak. Also, the time I spent in the UK last month means I don’t have too much accumulated fatigue in the legs.

After tomorrow morning’s session (the team is down for a 60km, 40km and 20km time trial, although I may only do the 60k and 20k) my foot will come right off the gas but I’ll continue swimming hard and every day right up til Wednesday night, when I travel. This, I think, is the answer for me. Coming to triathlon with a swimming background, I derive a lot of my confidence from how I’m swimming. So, while swimming daily may not actually really improve my Ironman swim time, it will help me go into the race feeling good. Just as importantly, mentally, being able to keep training almost right up to the day stops me from feeling unfit, fat and sluggish while swimming doesn’t take the toll that running or even cycling have on the body and is quick to recover from.

In the meantime, it’s a case of relaxing a bit, working extra hours so I can enjoy the time in Austria doing Ironman, and trying to stop myself from eating every sweet, treat and chocolate bar I see! Otherwise, next season, you’ll be more likely to see me on Jerry Springer than on any podiums.