This week, preparing for Sunday morning’s Best Big City Marathons, I’m testing a sort of modified Magness-Salazar Taper System (MSTS). Yesterday I ran fast. Today I’m running fast. Tomorrow I’m running fast. Some taper, you might say.
Right. But I’m running short on all these days. That’s the taper part. I’m running fast to “tune” my leg muscles (and brain, ie, recent memory) to the race pace that’s coming Sunday. And I’m doing the fast runs on the hard roads in my neighborhood.
First an apology to Steve Magness and Alberto Salazar. I don’t know that there is a MSTS. I certainly haven’t discussed it with them. I don’t know exactly how they taper their runners for big meets.
Here’s what I do know. Magness, who has a masters in sports science, spent about 18 months as Salazar’s assistant coach with the Nike-sponsored Oregon Project. During that time he wrote several provocative, mostly theoretical articles about tapering. You can find one, from Running Times, here. Best Big City Marathons.
Here’s the Salazar piece. His runners, Mo Farah and Galen Rupp, finished 1-2 in the Olympic 10,000 in London. Several days before the race, one of their training partners, Dathan Ritzenhein (who finished 13th in the hotly contested 10,000) told me that Mo and Galen had done some mind-boggling speed sessions. After the race, in the mixed zone, Salazar said that Galen had run an 11-second 100-meter the previous day. The previous day!!??
So Salazar seems to be using small amounts of serious speed in the days before big races. Magness is using hard surfaces. He theorizes that running on slow, soft surfaces (like grass) will tune your legs to feel slow and heavy. Many runners I know (like me) taper on soft surfaces in the belief that it will rid them of all their aches and pains. Magness seems to be saying: Don't worry about the little aches and pains. Get your legs (and brain) ready to run fast on race day. You'll have recovery time post-race.
So that's what I'm doing before the RW Half. Taking short runs, on the road. Finishing them with hard strides, on the road. This isn't a perfect experiment, because I'm not in great shape and not expecting a fast time in the Half.
But it's something I've never done before, so it's experimental in that regard. And it's fun to change things up a little vs my usual boring slow taper on grass and trails.
A good taper is absolutely crucial. It's the most important part of a training program. Why do we train long and hard if not to race well? Finding our best taper is job one for us distance runners.
Tapering has always been about running less. Magness and Salazar are taking another look, and introducing new elements. That's forward thinking.
