Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben E Lou
OK, vets. My first race (Half Marathon) is two weeks from today, and I could use some help with the whole taper thing.
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Ben, just my thoughts on your various questions..
Regarding the taper.. my belief is that you want to cut back on the distance AND the intensity, but more importantly the intensity. Gains that you get from the speedwork reportedly don't show up in your performance until 2 weeks after the exercise. So any speedwork you do during that two week window up until the race will not add to your fitness for the race but it will add to your fatigue. So your goal for the taper should likely be to try to keep some form of routine going, to keep your legs moving up until the race but try to recover the fatigue as much as possible during that time.
I think what worked well for me was going from 6 runs a week to 5 runs two weeks before the taper, with one speed work that week. Then the week of the race, I did one speed work, and ran only 3-4 days, taking off the two days prior to the race. Some people like to do a very easy run the day before the race just to get their legs moving, but I personally haven't done that myself.
For your race pace... you have been running enough miles and enough long runs that I think your aerobic fitness from your race paces should be able to hold through your race. Your 10k VDOT score is of a higher quality than your 5k one and suggests that you should be able to handle 1:45:43 in your current fitness from that time.
You mention negative splits, but I think the true goal is even splits, but that is pretty near impossible to nail perfectly (maybe you can if you're a professional I suppose). So most science indicates negative splits will give you a better time than positive splits will. So starting off the race with a more conservative pace is better, but you don't want to start a long race too slowly, or those 30 seconds per mile will add up to be several minutes without much gained from it.
I created a race route in strava and shared it with you in strava Ben just to try to learn what the course looks like. For the most part it seems very flat.. less than 100ft elevation according to strava in the entire thing, which is almost nothing for 13 miles. Even though Strava seems to underestimate elevation, it looks like you finish the race lower elevation than what you start which should also help your time. It seems the first half of the race is run on one street at a slightly higher elevation than the second half. I would probably use that downhill stretch that is close to mid-way as the point of a mental check to see how you feel during the race.
I think the "conservative" pace of 8:04min/mile which would equal a 1:45 half is probably a good start for the first half of the race in my opinion. On the down hill stretch (looks like mile 7-8 somewhere) you go down about 30-50 ft during that mile, which is not much but a nice mile of downhill that you can speed that up some. After you flatten back out on North Ocean Blvd you probably want to find your final good pace. You'll have less than a 10k left at that point, so if you feel like you can do a 7:43 pace for the remainder go for that.
I don't have much experience in heart rate monitor pacing for a race, My experience is at race pace my HR ends pretty high and stays there the entire time, so don't know if I have any suggestions if you want to go that route.
Anyways this is just my thoughts on what I would do with your fitness, but I probably am more conservative than you too, just don't blow yourself up too early or it will be a long 13 miles
