Taper is here!
Which means that the hardest trainings are all done and it is time for recovery and race day prep. For me personally , taper is the most difficult phase in the trainingsblock, I will have to control myself not to do too long or too heavy runs. While the trainingsload should be lower, the goal is to maintain the same intensity (only shorter).
Today my goal was to do the following schedule:
Warm up:
- 3 km run at low heartbeat (<142 bpm)
- 4x 20 sec strides (@3:30 / km) | 60 sec jog in between
- 3 min run at low heartbeat (<142 bpm)
Interval (4x)
- 5 min running @ 4:05 - 4:15 / km
- 3 min recovery jog
Cooling down
- 3 km easy pace
My results on the strides & 5 min blocks:
The run was a fun way to do a low intensity marathon specific tempo block. The weather here was again stunning! November sun with the beautiful autumn colors!
Right now my main focus on race day prep is to understand why I got severe cramps in Rotterdam 2024, 2025 and Amsterdam 2024. This was not something I was familiar with despite running marathons for 10 years now. In all these instances my Quads cramped insanely. At first I thought it was just “the wall” but I didn’t fatigue. Was it salt deficiency or dehydration or just not enough upper leg strenght?
My guess is that it was dehydration & salt deficiency that caused it. I feel my legs are strong enough and my nutrition plan carb wise was perfect. In my februari 2025 and mid April 2025 I didn’t experience any cramps here the temperature was lower (causing less sweat?). Still some reseach into completely understanding it, but already finetuning my race day nutrition plan (including salt and hydritation levels).
Hapoy running!
Great job on starting that taper, a big change in the mindset to get ready for the big day. Those cramps are odd if they are new, but dehydration and sodium deficiency from perspiration can definitely do it. You may want to make sure you're loaded up on calcium and magnesium as well before the race. But it does sound like dehydration as it happened at higher temps, do you drink fluids with electrolytes during the race?
Thanks! Yeah, I do take sis hydro in my water for electrolytes , next to that I use SaltTabs caps (+caffeine) on hourly basis. So in theory it should be covered (and no issues during last race).
Tnx for the tip! Will look at those levels as well!
!pizza
¿ᴺᵉᶜᵉˢᶦᵗᵃˢ ᴴᴮᴰ? ᵀᵉ ˡᵒ ᵖʳᵉˢᵗᵃᵐᵒˢ ᶜᵒⁿ @ruta.loans
You'll do great, a lot of success
Cramps yea most likely dehydrated or salts like magnesium!
The weather is great now, not too cold and warm good enough!