When to taper for a sub-3 marathon

I hate tapering. I really do. My wife once bought me a t-shirt that says “Warning: tapering marathoner.” She wasn’t joking.

The marathon block is a thing of beauty – structured, intense and endlessly satisfying. You settle into a groove. Your body knows what to expect. Mileage builds. Workouts sharpen. Your diet clicks into place and you start to feel like a lean, well-oiled machine. Garmin upgrades your VO2 Max. You get PBs in tune-up races. Everything’s dialled in (leaving aside the odd injury / niggle, of course).

And then – taper time. You take your foot off the gas, and everything starts to feel wrong.

Suddenly you’re training less, dealing with cold symptoms and watching your free time pile up. You don’t quite know what to do with yourself. If you’re not careful, your weight drifts upwards and you start to feel sluggish. You go from Superman to Jabba the Hutt in the space of a week.

And yet, of course, the taper matters. It gives your body time to absorb and consolidate the training gains. You won’t lose fitness – although you might carry a few extra kilos of water weight that vanishes on race day. The standard three-week taper is still a reliable, evidence-backed model:

• Week 3 before race: reduce to around 85% of peak mileage
• Week 2: cut to around 70%
• Race week: bring it down to 50% or lower

Intensity stays up – you’re still doing your hard sessions – but the volume drops.

Still, taper maranoia is real. You feel every niggle. You refresh the weather app obsessively. You convince yourself your legs are so stiff you won’t even make it to the start line. You miss the structure of training – even though you once complained about it.

For runners like me, who genuinely love the block, tapering can feel like a withdrawal. Especially when you know that after the race, you’ll be recovering for weeks and logging even fewer miles. It’s a psychological dip as much as a physical shift.

That’s why I’ve started tapering less. I’d rather arrive on slightly tired legs than lose all the momentum. I’m not alone in that either.

Coach Andrew Snow, in Run Elite, puts the case for a more nuanced, less rigid approach:

“The fundamental problem with tapering is that it presupposes that there exists some degree of overtraining that must be recovered from in order to perform well. If an athlete is overtrained, then of course they should have some form of additional rest...

The problem [with tapering strategies] is that they violate the law of specificity...

The skeptic is the runner who has increased training too much too quickly during the core of their training cycle. They are close to burned out, they have a deep fatigue, and they simply must taper in order to make it to race day feeling refreshed.

The elite is the runner who prioritises recovery during training and therefore can train with high specificity all the way up to race week. This runner will have superior performance on race day due to more specificity during the important few weeks leading up to the competition.

As an additional benefit, the runner will have reduced injury risk during the core of their training because they are allowing sustainable recovery to happen for months, not just weeks, during their buildup.”

Snow’s argument is powerful – but it assumes you’re already in that elite bracket. If you’re still learning how your body responds to the demands of sub-3 training, then the traditional taper is probably your friend. It gives you space to freshen up and arrive on race day feeling ready, not ragged.

Either way, this phase isn’t easy. Here are five things that help keep me sane:

Five ways to stay sane during your sub-3 taper

1. Stick to routine
   Keep your training slots and your meal timings the same. Don’t let extra time turn into anxiety (easier said than done, so find ways of filling that time - even if it's just catching up on Netflix.)
2. Watch your weight – gently
   You won’t gain real fat in two weeks, but don’t drift into mindless snacking. You’re still fuelling like an athlete. Personal tip - don't develop cravings for stroopwafels druing this period, they are highly addictive and you don't need the carbs!
3. Keep intensity up
   The volume drops, but you’re still training. A few sharp sessions will both remind your legs what they’re about to do, and remind you that you're capable of it.
4. Write down your race plan
   Put your nervous energy into something useful. Visualise the course, the splits, your fuelling. Make it feel real. There are always course videos on YouTube.
5. Remind yourself: this is the hardest part for a reason
   If you’re feeling restless, that means the taper is working. You’re itching to run. That’s the point.