Listen While You Run - Taper

Lee and Karmell demystify the taper process, explaining how to properly reduce training volume while maintaining intensity in the three weeks before a 100-mile race. Taper is the time to let your body heal while keeping your mind focused on race day preparation rather than filling your schedule with other physically demanding activities.

• The final "peak" or "hard" training week should end approximately three weeks before race day
• During taper, reduce volume but maintain intensity—don't slow down, just run less
• Strength training can continue until 7-10 days before the race, then reduce to minimal maintenance work
• Avoid taking up new physical activities during taper like hiking, mountain biking, or stand-up paddleboarding
• Expect "phantom injuries" and the psychological effects of the "taper worm"—these are normal pre-race experiences
• Use taper time constructively for drop bag planning, which helps visualize and prepare for the entire race experience
• Consider dropping caffeine consumption to one cup per day before race week to increase sensitivity during the race
• Trim toenails 10-14 days before race day—not the week of—to avoid uncomfortable issues

Chapters

• 0:16 Welcome to Taper Talk
• 1:31 Planning Your Peak Week
• 4:12 Hard Week Explained
• 8:32 Taper Fundamentals
• 17:54 Taper Don'ts and Common Mistakes
• 28:36 Taper Problems and Phantom Injuries
• 37:09 Drop Bag Planning During Taper

Transcript

Karmell: 0:16

Hello everybody, welcome to the Women's 100-Miler Project. Listen While you Run series. Today is a highly requested episode. Today we are going to talk about taper Are you excited.

Lee: 0:32

I'm currently tapering, so I'm agitated and hyperactive and distractible and my shin hurts, but not very much. I'm sure it'll be much worse next week but not very much.

Karmell: 0:44

I'm sure it'll be much worse next week. We will get into that shortly. First off, before we even get into taper taper, I kind of want to back it up to. We're on the Women's 100-Miler Project training plan. We're phase three. We're on the Women's 100-Miler Project training plan. We're, you know, phase three. We're going through the motions, we're doing all that, but now you know the race is starting to approach. At what point in time, like how long out from the race, do we start doing something different than just following, just following, the training plan?

Lee: 1:26

So the goal is to have one of those hard weeks, some variation on that, your peak volume week and about three weeks out from the race. For me, my race is on a Friday and that peak volume weekend and week ended on a Sunday, so it's more like 19 or 20 days and then 21. That's, we're calling that three weeks, okay, so even a couple months out from the race.

Lee: 1:52

For a lot of people it's important to look at your schedule of life and your schedule of training and figure out where those hard weeks go, because if you've got one three weeks out from the race, you should have another one, maybe seven weeks out and six weeks out, cause you should not do three weeks out from the race. You should have another one, maybe seven weeks out, maybe six weeks out, because you should not do hard weeks back to back. You can do close to that, but you shouldn't just be stacking up hard week over and over again. It's not enough variety, you'll get injured, you'll overtrain yourself. So you should actually look at this calendar and pick where those last couple hard weeks that you're going to do max out volume are going to go, walking backwards from three weeks before the race.

Karmell: 2:29

Okay, and just to first off, I want to kind of get in there with hard week. If you're not doing hard week, you should be doing hard week. That is, that is part of the training plan, right? So you know, basically, we recommend that once you've been on the plan for about eight weeks, so you start in phase one, right? And then once you're on the plan for about eight weeks, everybody starts adding in hard week, and our general guidance for that is about once a month. So, like Lee was saying, if you can't just do all hard weeks, you're going to get injured, you're going to get burned out. Bad things will happen, right? So you do hard week, and hard week is always followed by easy week. And so what you're saying basically is is, as we're approaching that race, we really want to have that kind of planned out on the calendar. We're not, we're not winging it like, ah, I think I'll do hard week this week. We're planning it out so that that final hard week is ending. You said ending approximately three weeks out from the race.

Lee: 3:32

Yes.

Karmell: 3:32

Okay, and so that final hard week is going to serve as what sometimes is called peak week, right, yes, so can you explain that Like as if this is my first time Just pretend it's not actually my first time, I tell everyone that, but I'm a little seasoned but as if this was my first time for peak week what exactly so?

Lee: 4:02

this is the highest amount of volume that you run. What exactly so? This is the highest amount of volume that you run. So if, if I've been mostly running 50 mile weeks and I started back at 30 mile weeks, I got up to 40 to 50 mile weeks I will run for my last week that goes week four to three, out from the race. I might run a 70 mile week and the week before that might be 60, but I won't have run a bunch of 70 mile weeks and for some folks it's going to be higher volume than that, for some it'll be lower, but this will be the highest number of miles and amount of hours of training that I do in. All of my training will be that week and I will be pretty close to it. The week before it's going to be a two week, two week buildup and probably almost a three-week buildup, but that beginning of the buildup would be more of a standard, what I'm used to.

Lee: 4:53

So there's hard week and so the week before you do that hard week, before you really peak out, you would still be doing a fairly long, long run and you'd still be doing maybe a couple extra intervals on your intervals. You know, making sure that you're not doing. If you usually do eight of them, you might do 10. If you usually do 10, you might do 12. That's another way to do peak week as well. If you're not going to do exactly hard week the way it's described, then you would still do, because with hard week there's those five minute cruise intervals, which gets someone out to much more volume than most runners are getting, because a lot of them are doing eight by two minute repeats and that's not very many miles and it doesn't take very long unless you're doing huge warm-ups and warm-downs. So the cruise intervals were to bring the volume way up. Some folks will instead do maybe 10 or 12 by three minute repeats instead of doing the cruise intervals and then do longer cruise intervals on the weekend if they've been with the program a while.

Lee: 5:56

If you haven't been, if you've never run 100, if that all sounds ah, complicated, ignore it. Do the hard week the way it's described, and so you'll have done it and then done some other stuff and then do it again four weeks later and that four weeks later will be your peak out week. Your long run is going to be the longest long run you do, I believe on there it says get up to seven or eight hours, you're going into a hundred miler. I think eight hours is where we put the peak out that you would ever do. I actually, for this last hundred, did not peak out at eight hours, but this is my. I don't know what hundred. I'm somewhere in around 60 of them so, and I did run a 50k race fairly recently, so I'm confident in my ability to have the endurance. If you're going your first hundred mile you don't have tons of ultra experience at hard hundred k's then eight hours is a real good idea for confidence. More than that, and you start to actually break yourself down a bit.

Karmell: 6:52

Gotcha, and we've done some variations of that too. I remember one time for peak week we did a half marathon of the Sound of Music.

Lee: 7:01

Hills Saturday Saturday half marathon of Hill of Peace marathon yeah, we did. Sunday was like a six or seven hour run. That was real painful yeah, well, I don't.

Karmell: 7:10

Yeah, it was like a slow, like we did like a half marathon of of hill repeats on saturday and then just like a marathon of long run, like on sunday, on broken, beat up legs. So, yeah, I mean there's room to, you know, play with it a little bit if. If this isn't your first time and you're looking for some variety, but if this is your first time training for a hundred miler, then it might be better to just go ahead and stick to that kind of that hard week format.

Lee: 7:40

But we had a very, very hilly race impending, so we had something that was in the mountains when we live in Ohio and had I don't remember it was 25 or 27,000 feet of gain, but it was somewhere in that range. Maybe 18 miles Saturday and then 25 Sunday. Just as a, for example, um, or doing you know four hours, then eight hours, you would maybe want to do three hours of towing a tire around or hill repeats or something before your long run, because you really, uh, are going to need that ability to have beat the crap out of your legs on hills and the tire does a similar kind of muscular beating up and still be able to go jog and shuffle through your race.

Karmell: 8:31

Excellent. So we do peak week and then next is we're in taper. Now, basically, we're in the first days of taper. So, first up what is taper? Just a general description.

Lee: 8:50

Taper is when you let your body heal the most fully that it is going to get to be allowed to heal other than your race recovery. Taper means cut the volume but keep a lot of the intensity. If you don't keep the intensity during taper then you're going to get worse. So instead of say slowing down your long run, which some people are like, well, just go slower. No, that's not taper. Taper means that I do less volume, so I might go out and do two weeks out. I go do long run only instead of doing 25 miles. Let's say I do 13 miles but I do them at the pace that I would do 25. So I've kept the same intensity. I haven't turned it up, but I haven't turned it down. I'm going my usual pace, but for half the volume. I have a question.

Karmell: 9:37

Why would I lose like three weeks of training to this? I could just do three more weeks of training and be you could.

Lee: 9:44

I have a question. Yes, if you were to run, let's say, a 50K race and actually race the 50K race, and then the next weekend you were to go to another 50K race and race it, do you think that the second?

Karmell: 10:00

one would go as well as the first. That sounds like a challenge to me.

Lee: 10:05

I know that it does, I know, know, and that's why I love you. So. But yeah, that's gonna beat you up if you, if you so sometimes, and you just did this at a 50k. You did not really fully taper for that 50k, resulting in a little bit of a slower time, but you're used to the distance and you were using it as sort of a training and I also also didn't go, all I didn't go all out at the 50K either because I didn't want I didn't want to have to do a normal 50K recovery, so yeah, so you did that intentionally?

Karmell: 10:35

Yes, so basically, what you're saying is that that's not actually going to make me more ready for my 100 miler to use those last three weeks.

Lee: 10:46

You were 0% worried about your ability to finish a 50K because you've finished lots of hundreds. I don't remember how many, but it's 20, something, 30, somewhere in there it's at least 20.

Karmell: 10:58

Right.

Lee: 10:59

And some over distance races, and so you weren't really worried that you wouldn't be able to go 31 miles in a row. You do 26 to 30 mile training runs periodically. You were training. But if you're new to 100 milers then you're probably very reasonably concerned about finishing your 100 miler, and so it's really important, if you actually want to finish it, that you be in your best possible condition, and if you do not taper you will not be. Now you can do speed hills on Saturday and then go run 13 miles on Sunday two weeks out. That's not not training. You're still training your body. You're just not exhausting it and breaking it down further. You're letting it begin to heal. You're not going to sit on your butt for the next 20 days. There will even be intervals Two and a half weeks out. You can do pretty much regular intervals. You just maybe don't do the last two Two and a half weeks out.

Lee: 11:54

I'll actually usually do my full set of intervals, even though it's taper. I will take my easy runs easier. I'll rest more Monday. I will often push those intervals to Wednesday, from Tuesday or even to Thursday, because I want to be more recovered when I do them so that they beat me up less, so I've peaked out my volume that previous weekend. Usually, though, it'll be a shorter set. If I was doing 10 repeats before, I'll do eight, and sometimes I will. If I've been doing more three minute repeats, I'll do only two minutes so that they're not beating the snot out of me, but I'm still getting pretty out of breath. I'm still keeping that leg spin, so I'm not breaking my body down more, but I am still training. I'm making sure to maintain all of the benefits. It's just you're not going to get faster in that last three weeks. The only thing you're going to do in the last two or three weeks is ruin your race. If you try to train more, you're not going to get much stronger in that amount of time. You've done the work.

Lee: 12:50

So now it's just about maintaining it when people have a dentist appointment and they haven't flossed or brushed their teeth like.

Karmell: 12:58

And then like the day they have the dentist appointment they like just brush their teeth really good and floss and like, just be advised.

Lee: 13:04

You won't know we can. We always know, we always know. For anyone who's not aware, I'm a dentist. I see this all day. No, I don't have to see it, the hygienist sees it. So it's better than do your training you don't want to.

Karmell: 13:19

You can't, you can't fix what training you didn't do in those last three weeks. This is basically the point. So so you get that at least three weeks and then you know you're saying you're doing the speed work here.

Lee: 13:32

So a week and a half out a week and a half out. Your speed work would be like a week and a half out, which I did. I did my speed work this week but where I've been doing like 12 by two minute repeats, 10 by three minutes, I've been doing like 12 by two minute repeats, 10 by three minutes. I've been pushing the speed. This time I did six by two minutes and I did three of them regular and I did the other three as accelerating, meaning I started them slower than normal and only ran the end fast. So my legs are not beat up by doing six two minutes where only three of them were even the standard. The other three were accelerating. So I got just as I actually got a little faster at the end, but I wasn't running as sustained and fast at pace. So although it made me feel very winded and it peaked out some cardiovascular things and physiologic things, it did not beat up my leg muscles very much at all.

Karmell: 14:16

All right. So I'd like to touch on that because Before you said it don't change intensity you're reducing volume, not intensity. So are you saying that as you get closer into taper, you do reduce the intensity? A?

Lee: 14:30

little bit. No, I reduce the number I did my first. Three repeats were exactly as standard, but I would usually do 12. So doing three of them is you? Don't even start to get hard until number five. I see what you're saying. So you're doing the same intensity as you're going hard, you're just not doing as many so it's like you don't end up as winded and it's that I'm still that winded at the end by the end of my sixth repeat. I'm completely out of breath.

Lee: 14:56

just like I usually would be, but my leg muscles haven't started to hurt because then there's a recovery between them, gotcha. So because I'm still taking my full recovery between them and walking and actually probably slower, it's just that I'm doing and the other thing you can do if you're hurting a little bit from repeats, as long as you're going at least as intense as you would for three minutes on your two minutes, you're still keeping a good intensity.

Lee: 15:17

The goal is to still keep enough intensity that you're getting your heart rate up and getting yourself out of breath and getting your legs spinning pretty quickly, but not doing enough to where your legs start to hurt. If you've done a set of 10 repeats then you know that the first four are pretty easy and it's really not bad until after six, and then seven, eight, nine and ten is where things start to get more difficult, but you're not doing that many right so you're pretty much in taper.

Lee: 15:44

You're stopping the workout right where it starts to get difficult okay, okay, gotcha, and then we're gonna.

Karmell: 15:51

I don't see much value in spitting out, uh, specific numbers by day here. We're on the women's hundred miler project site. We do have in the resources section. We do have a taper there, and taper does give specific guidance about what you should be doing by the day, and we're going to actually even clean that up more and then make that more accessible. We're going to also kind of relocate it, add another link just so it's more visible, so people aren't missing it there. So, as far as the actual prescription for what you should be doing over those three weeks, we are going to have that day-by-day breakdown, just like the rest of the plan, where you can look at it and say, okay, sunday, two weeks out, I'm doing this. Monday, two weeks out, I'm doing this. So that's all going to be there. I don't think we need to go into that in podcast form. That's hard to listen to. So I think we have that general idea that that volume is just going to continue to wind down for those three weeks leading up to the race. What about strength training?

Lee: 16:56

That's the other thing A lot of times one week out from the race.

Lee: 17:00

I will not run both Saturday and Sunday, Okay, I pick one of those days and go an hour or two and then, unless I have any tweaks, then I won't. And the other thing is easy runs. When you're peaking out, an easy run can go 60 minutes and you might even have a day when you run fairly easy, like I'll do a Thursday, and actually put it to two hours, and I believe that's in hard week. There's always the option to do 30 minutes in the morning and then do an easy jog in the evening, which has great benefits. So those are peak-out activities During taper.

Lee: 17:31

You can skip one of your easy runs if you need the extra recovery. When you get in your last couple weeks, and especially your last week, you're not doing them all the days and easy runs become 20 to 30 minutes, not 60, not 45. You're really just easing off and just doing enough slow jog and it's easy because you're running the pace you would do for an hour or even for a long run, and you're just doing it for half hour. It loosens your legs up, but you're like I didn't even really work out, I just got my blood moving and I'm done. It should be very easy.

Karmell: 18:04

Okay, so that didn't answer my question at all. What was it? I know because I wanted to cover that before we moved on Strength training.

Lee: 18:11

Strength training, strength stays the same until the week before the race. Okay, so you're doing the exact same strength training from like phase three until the week before the race, if you were doing additional strength training on your own and that involves heavyweight lifting where you're doing really heavy weight on, like squats or deadlifts or something say it's more like 10 days out, don't be lifting heavy weights within 10 days. Don't be going on the squat rack or the leg press machines or something with heavy weights within 10 days of your race.

Karmell: 18:44

Well, that's going to get me to— that's not part of our project, but I know a lot of people do side strength training on their own thing, and that's completely okay.

Lee: 18:52

I would never lift heavy within 10 days of my race. I've done it. That's why I would never now.

Karmell: 18:57

Gotcha. So even if you're doing that regularly, you're cutting that back too. For the taper You're not lifting heavy. And that brings me to one of the next things here, the do's and don'ts of taper. And I think that kind of is a good segue into the don'ts of taper.

Lee: 19:19

I had one more strength thing though oh, did you have a strength thing?

Lee: 19:21

The week of the race for a lot of people, to keep everything balanced, they're going to need to do a little bit of strength, like a little bit of single leg loop bridges, a little of the like single leg dumbbell deadlift motion, you know, like just those things, the hip shifts.

Lee: 19:34

Just do about half the number of reps, you know, cut it back to just one or two sets and just do half the number of reps, because there's some people who just start to feel out of whack very easily. And I will do a little bit of single leg loop bridges, even like two or three days before race, even the night before possibly, and a couple simple movement things, but just a handful to keep everything loose and firing properly. There's some TheraBand exercises I do, because if I don't make sure everything's firing right, I feel tweaky starting the race. So that's okay, and you're going to know your own body at this point and know if you have extra exercises that you have to do extra of or else you hurt, got it? That makes sense. Now I'll get your question, all right.

Karmell: 20:19

Which I forgot. Well, I'm going into the don'ts, I'm segueing into the don'ts of Taper, and so that brings me to. I think this one's so important and we have burned ourselves with this one too. You've been training for 100 miler for how long? And it's consuming your life, and you're putting a lot of other things on the back burner, possibly other sports and activities that you're into. Oh so it's so freaking easy that when you get to taper, you're like all right, well, I don't have to do all this freaking running, like yeah let's go stand up paddle boarding and uh so that's a that's a specific example of the one we burned ourselves with.

Karmell: 21:07

We did a ton of stand up paddle boarding during one of our tapers and it's like, if you've ever been on a stand up paddle board, you're actually using a tremendous amount of leg strength but you don't feel like you are like with all the balancing and so it sneaks up on you. It's like we're getting to our race and it's like why are we so sore? So that's one of the things we've done.

Lee: 21:36

I know people who— I've crashed a mountain bike like five days out from a race.

Karmell: 21:41

So mountain biking, snowboarding is another one that people do.

Lee: 21:46

No, I've done that to myself.

Karmell: 21:48

I did that before, when you're like taper time. I'm going to go snowboarding, Another one where you are actually using your legs and if you suddenly go hit the mountain on your snowboard, like that, yes, you're using leg strength, Like that's not taper right. So, or trying a new sport is also not the time to be like I'm going to go try yoga, Like if you go and do a few yoga classes. Like yeah, it might seem like a good idea where you're like oh well, I'm not running. I'll go do that.

Lee: 22:21

But what's that?

Karmell: 22:22

Jigsaw puzzles Jigsaw puzzles, jigsaw puzzles.

Lee: 22:24

Make sure that you get up and stretch your back periodically drinking tea and doing jigsaw puzzles don't go party for a week, because now you're on taper and you don't have all these restrictions.

Karmell: 22:34

That also will not I think another one, um, I mean you name it because it, because also you said right, you're, you're agitated, right now You're starting to feel the meh, this is not the time to go drink whiskey cocktails. Well, not the time to go drink whiskey cocktails, but also not really the time like to necessarily do a bunch of housework.

Karmell: 22:54

Painting's not bad, but the yard work, I've hurt myself Right well, because it's so easy to be like I have this time, I have this energy. Well, because it's so easy to be like I have this time, I have this energy. And if you're suddenly you know taking on the house, where it's like you're moving furniture to vacuum under the couch and you know doing yard work outside, bagging up the leaves, whatever, A little is good but yeah, you definitely have to be careful.

Karmell: 23:16

Yeah, a little could be good, but especially as, like I know, you know, my back could be really sensitive and it's not the time to start to aggravate new things by doing things that you don't usually do as much as it might seem like it. Organize the pantry, so fun, and then, I think, another one that has burned us. That is much less obvious. This is particularly when we're traveling to some place.

Karmell: 23:40

That we find really interesting. So I think this got us the most when we went to Europe for Swiss Peaks and we went like a week ahead, at least a week ahead of the race, like what did we, we flew into Germany right, we flew into Munich and then took a train, but we were, we were seeing like a different city, like every day.

Karmell: 24:06

Well, yeah, so we had these huge packs that we were wearing that had all our stuff in it, like so everything, like all our drop baggins. This is a 360-kilometer race that we have like our drop bags, for we have everything for, like you know, whole race and for for this whole trip in these backpacker backpacks and we're like walking around all over the place, right, and so we're seeing these different cities every day and it's like I mean we're easily doing at least 10 miles of walking a day, going around seeing these like.

Lee: 24:41

It's no big deal, except that we don't ever do that.

Karmell: 24:45

Right, like well, even without the packs like 10 miles a day, sometimes we'd find like a hotel or whatever that would let us keep the packs there for a while we were still walking to train stations.

Karmell: 24:54

Sometimes we were walking miles with those packs too. But even without the packs you're not usually walking, walking like 10 to 20 miles a day. So if during taper you're out walking 10 to 20 miles a day, that's not really taper, and so that's something that we realized. I think, after making that mistake, that we have to, that it's actually better to you know, if you want to see a place, if at all possible, to do the race, then you know, build in a couple rest days and then go around and sightsee.

Lee: 25:31

We did other dumb things to that like I think our peak out, our peak out volume weekend was the fat dog 120 oh yeah, I'm not saying and then we were home for like a week and a half and then we flew out. So we weren't even actually fully recovered when we started the touristing walking.

Karmell: 25:46

Yes, I mean the level of stupidity. So, by the way, spoiler alert, we DNF'd that race, but we did go to 100 miles. We were like we're at least going to 100 miles.

Lee: 25:56

Well, we DNF'd with style. We walked ourselves off course to a hotel. We walked ourselves off course to a hotel.

Karmell: 26:01

Oh, and we got engaged on course. Yeah, that's true. So we got engaged.

Lee: 26:05

Then we yeah, it was totally. Then we went to one of those fancy grocery stores and bought ready-made food and wine and checked ourselves into a cute little boutique hotel.

Karmell: 26:11

Yeah, we like walked right off, course, right into, like, yeah, walked right off course right into the store.

Lee: 26:18

Well, we have to help you repatriate.

Karmell: 26:22

No, no, no, we're good Bye, but yeah, it was funny going into the store too, just like three days on course were just filthy and disgusting and like just stocking up on food, because that was one of the things that got me to. They had no food I could eat during that race, I was so hungry.

Lee: 26:39

That was fun communication that was like they.

Karmell: 26:41

They were like we'll have vegan options and their vegan options had like cheese all over it and stuff. But yeah, there were so many things that went wrong, but one of them was the walking, Like you added up, and I mean that's not the only one.

Karmell: 26:55

The walking has gotten us on too, there have been other ones too that the walking, like walking all around the city, has definitely maybe not caused a DNF but definitely, I think, hurt performance some, where you don't realize that, oh hey, in the last two days I walked, you know, 20, 30 miles. So these are really things to consider, especially if you're traveling, and food food learning.

Lee: 27:21

You have to bring food with you. Those backpacker meals you got are great. Look at where you're traveling and understand what your usual diet is, because airplane food, airport food, if you're doing that, if you're traveling by car and you eat uh uh fast food and your system is not used to it, it's not necessarily going to go well for your uh gastrointestinal system during your race that's more like the do's and don'ts of travel for a race versus versus taper.

Karmell: 27:51

But yeah, it's all the learning the things, um. So what about do's of taper?

Lee: 27:59

what are well, there's taper. There's other taper problems besides that. They're like there's of taper. What are Well, there's taper. There's other taper problems besides that.

Karmell: 28:04

Like there's the taper worm which gets in your brain. Right, we're going to get there. We're going to get there. Well, yeah, I guess that's kind of plays into the do's of taper we already covered.

Lee: 28:10

the do's is how to taper. You know, just keep taking care of yourself. Eat healthy, hydrate, get electrolytes, but do not do it super aggressively. For me, I like just salted french fries. Potatoes are a way better carbohydrate than cheap pasta for my tummy.

Karmell: 28:29

You mean I think you said preload electrolytes. Did you mean preload carbs?

Lee: 28:38

If you salt the fries, it's a win-win.

Karmell: 28:40

It's delicious for me.

Lee: 28:41

Electrocarbing, yeah, but some people will drink electrolyte drink. Like, if you know that you're always getting low, it might pay to. You know. In the evening, the night before the race, mix up a bottle of that element stuff or similar. Whatever your preferred electrolyte drink is put a little extra salt on your food if it tastes at all good to you.

Karmell: 28:59

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense it all good to you.

Lee: 29:06

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Now, some people elect because it's hard to stay up overnight and people want to be more sensitive to caffeine in terms of it waking them up, will elect to cut caffeine back or out. The week before a race on taper. If you suddenly cut your caffeine out, I know people who do this for just the week before a taper.

Karmell: 29:19

Some people do it a month before the race.

Lee: 29:21

Yeah, that's a much better idea, because simply cutting it out completely the week before the race will make you a crazy well, you don't necessarily have to just cut it out.

Karmell: 29:30

I think even I mean, if you go down to a cup of coffee a day, you're fine, like I. I never cut caffeine out completely um, ever for any of my hundreds before, and I don't know that I'm going to do it this time. We'll see. But what I am doing is I am making a very conscious effort to cut back to one cup a day before the next race. I will say that our last 100-miler attempt, which was a DNFf our disaster dnf that, yeah, you could.

Karmell: 30:06

You could listen to previous podcasts about burnout if you want to hear a little bit about that. But I mean, it was a hot mess. We just the. The level of self-sabotage for that race was just crazy. But one of the things, too, is the ridiculous amount of caffeine that I was like I was drinking like seven or eight cups of coffee a day like leading up to that race.

Lee: 30:31

So then there was delirium and nothing to be done about it, because what do you do when 400 milligrams of caffeine doesn't wake you up?

Karmell: 30:36

Exactly Like. So if you're drinking like and your body's at fail, and doesn't care If you're drinking like more than two cups of coffee a day, especially if you're drinking like seven cups of coffee a day when you get super tired during your race and you're like drinking coffee. Nothing happens. It doesn't wake you up at all, it has no impact. Or those like caffeinated gels with, like you know, 50 to a hundred milligrams of caffeine nothing. It doesn't do anything.

Lee: 31:06

For years I would cut my coffee back to a cup a day before races. I also only once really gave it up completely. I pretty much just love my coffee, but I used to always cut back and I used to have an easier time staying up overnight. And then I quit cutting my coffee back and quit trying as hard as just. It's the trouble with trying to run too many hundreds. You get excited and you think this is great, but then it loses its specialness and you stop really planning them. Well, and you it, it. It shows up. It stops being as much fun. Actually I stopped having as much fun with them. Kind of excited to go back to them now after a break.

Karmell: 31:43

Yeah, yeah, but I think also just having that amount of coffee anyway like like something's off if you're having seven cups of coffee a day, Like I think, now that we've cut back, I think we both actually have more energy and and feel better.

Lee: 31:57

I'm still medium withdrawal. But yeah, overall I feel much better. I'm not getting as tired all of a sudden in the middle of the day with my morning coffee three cups wearing off so now I feel better. I have a cup in the at lunch and I feel great.

Karmell: 32:11

So are there any? Before we get into taper room, are there any other? Do's that you can think of.

Lee: 32:18

Here's one 10 days to two weeks before your raceim your toenails. Do not wait until the week of the race, because if you God forbid cut one a little bit too short, you'll get that little ingrown thing that hurts. Just go ahead and trim your toenails neatly 10 to 14 days before your race, unless you have insane toenail growth. That should be enough to keep them fine for the race. Do not be trying to trim your toenails in the last few days before the race.

Karmell: 32:47

What happens when you don't trim your toenails?

Lee: 32:50

Well, if you kick a rock wrong, they snag and lift up and then you bleed underneath them, inside of your sock and shoe, which is not entirely optimal. And then also, there's another thing, and you may or may not have noticed. This may not apply to all of you. Um, there's another thing, and you may or may not have noticed. This may not apply to all of you, but for some folks with the grooming of the body, hair in the bikini area, don't change what you're doing. I know one person who got a Brazilian very shortly before 100, thinking it would simplify things. It didn't. She says this is the most horrible chafing of her whole life. So I would say don't do that.

Karmell: 33:27

A lot of people will actually, she discusses it freely in our first podcast episode, by the way.

Lee: 33:32

So we're allowed to say her name.

Karmell: 33:34

If you haven't checked out the podcast with Jessica Vandenbush, it's pretty epic. It's still one of my favorites that we've done.

Lee: 33:44

Well, she's fantastic. So a lot of people and I'll do this. The shaving, I think Carmel just continues as normal. I tried that the hair follicles get irritated, so I will stop grooming that completely about a week out, because the hairs being short seems to do better for me. Otherwise they get pokey. But I think this is down to individual preference and if you're doing fine on your long runs, then keep doing what you're doing.

Karmell: 34:17

But don't go get waxed, but don't go get waxed, don't go get waxed.

Lee: 34:22

Or suddenly try a new product or something, and if you are getting problems on your longest, long runs, consider letting yourself have a tiny bit of hair for your race.

Karmell: 34:31

Actually, this is kind of a weird spot to stick this, but I was thinking about this the other day as I was cutting the liners out of my new shorts. If you're getting at all like any tiny bit of a hotspot like not even quite chafing yet, but like of a hotspot in your drawers, like we both cut the liners out of our running shorts.

Lee: 34:54

Oh, if they're shorts? Yeah, I was going to actually post a picture of me cutting my liners out and be like hey tip.

Lee: 35:00

If you've got spandex, then you don't have to worry. Some folks have to have spandex for thigh chafing, and if you do then you don't have to worry about the shorts liners. But if you are a person who's wearing just old style you know, running shorts like you'd see in the Olympics in the 1980s then you would want to consider cutting the liner out, because where the liner hits your leg, where your leg stops being your leg and becomes your delicates, you'll get chafed. That elastic can be unpleasant.

Karmell: 35:32

That definitely happened to me. I remember my first year 100-miler training. It was one of our longest runs and you and Mel got way ahead of me. And then I finally got to you and you were like, oh, was it your IT band? Because that's still when, every once in a while, my it band would act up and I was like, no, my bits like like tremendous pain. And you're like, oh, you still have the short liner, you need to cut that out. And I did and it was like never a problem again after that.

Lee: 36:03

But yeah it was the outer part of the bits, not the inner part.

Karmell: 36:06

Yeah, it was. Well, it was like the outer edges yeah.

Lee: 36:10

Some of this is down to your particular shorts brand and fit, so there's some of you who won't need this advice at all, but I'm sure it was entertaining.

Karmell: 36:17

Listening as you run.

Lee: 36:18

I hope this helped you pass a couple minutes.

Karmell: 36:20

Just know it's an option. There you go. Didn't know you were getting that with taper, did you?

Lee: 36:30

I mean, if you chafe bad enough, it's going to affect your pace and your mood. Remember Cocodona chafing? That was unavoidable. The hair follicles got irritated. That was god awful.

Karmell: 36:41

Yes, sorry, I got distracted, distracted by the squirrel that lives in our walls. Don't worry about it, you know, totally normal. Carry on. Sorry, I got distracted by the squirrel that lives in our walls, don't worry about it, you know, totally normal. Carry on Taper problems.

Lee: 36:54

Taper problems, let's just pretend there's not a squirrel two feet from my head.

Karmell: 36:59

Oh, that's race recovery.

Lee: 37:00

I guess we're going to do race recovery podcasts separately? Taper problems yeah, race recovery will. I guess we're going to do race recovery podcasts separately Taper problems.

Karmell: 37:07

Yeah, race recovery will be a separate problem.

Lee: 37:15

Yeah. So let's talk about, yeah, definitely taper problems. Okay, so there's a thing called the taper worm, taper worm.

Karmell: 37:18

And when you?

Lee: 37:18

taper, it gets in your brain and it interferes with your regular thought process. Yeah, like RFK, but worse.

Karmell: 37:25

Well, I don't know, I don't think worse no, maybe not worse.

Lee: 37:30

And so you will get more agitated to normal sometimes, or you will have self-doubt, or people will just suddenly be intolerable more than normal. And also sometimes you will suddenly realize that you've somehow mysteriously gained 10 or 15 pounds. You haven't, but you'll be sure of it. You'll be looking at yourself going how did this happen? I'm not going to be able to run. How did I put on weight? I was normal three days ago. It will freak you out. It's not real. It's pretty awful.

Karmell: 37:58

Also, you will forget how to run. Sometimes it's a little real.

Lee: 38:02

Sometimes. No, it's not real. Sometimes you will actually forget how to run. You it'll it'll come back, but you'll just be sure of it you've forgotten how to run. That happens, um, what about?

Lee: 38:15

and then there's the random pain like as your body's trying to heal which your body will successfully heal but taper when it means that deeper level of healing. You will all of a sudden and I will usually get this like if I taper properly somewhere between like two and four days before a hundred my knee will be tight, my shin will hurt, just random weird pain I'll go to, I'll go to jog up the stairs and get like medial knee pain. You know, like there's a little weird inside edge twinge that never even hurts me when I'm running and training. The other one will just get tight. Yeah, I get super weird stuff.

Karmell: 38:48

That's like, like you said, it's like never even been a problem.

Lee: 38:51

You're like this doesn't happen to me. I don't get shin splints, but I'm still in the shin pain.

Karmell: 38:54

Yeah, the shin.

Lee: 38:56

The shin, that's one where suddenly you have like shin injuries Like it's just like you know it's a phantom injury is what they call them.

Karmell: 39:04

Phantom injuries. They feel real. So there are multiple things going on here. First off, there are actually physiological reasons for this. I mean, your muscles are repairing themselves. Things get tight. I think I read something about blood flow, the way the blood flow changes.

Karmell: 39:22

You know we're not going to get super into the science on this one, but just know that it's like it is like physiologically expected for you to have phantom injuries and even real legitimate pain during taper, and this really psychs people out. So we want you to know like if there's one thing I want to drive home, it's how incredibly normal that is and that it's actually to be expected well, some poor person is going to have no pain and be like have a race tomorrow and my shin hasn't hurt, just be happy I'm not a real attorney you'll get pain later, yeah, so most people will have that.

Karmell: 40:05

And then the other thing is we are barely like science is barely scraping the surface of, like the um, the mind, body connectivity and, you know, your nervous system as a whole, like, the things that we're finding out are just absolutely fascinating as far as that goes, and so my point here is that if your brain knows that you're about to run 100 miles, your body knows that you're about to run 100 miles.

Lee: 40:35

No, my body can't listen to my brain. I told it to not True story.

Karmell: 40:40

I'm going to fake it out True story and especially, the more psyched out you're getting, the more you're going to have bodily reactions to that. So it's like if you're having the phantom injury, your brain's getting all crazy like, oh, I'm going to be injured for my 100. Your body's going to be responding to all that.

Lee: 40:57

Do not say screw it, I'm just getting drunk, or screw it, I'm just going to go eat everything and go for a run. Just calmly realize this is a very normal thing yeah yeah, it's totally normal.

Karmell: 41:10

And then just feel crazy, everybody's going to get through it.

Karmell: 41:14

Now, in many cases, though, people are feeling like ah, this is tweaky, I don't know if I should be out, you know running on it.

Karmell: 41:24

I don't know if I should be out, you know running on it. So if you are having, like, actual unpleasantness and actual pain this is something that's come up in the group a lot over the last couple of years is like should I just cancel my race, like you know, because now I can't do anything. If, for that last month, like that last few weeks, and even that last month, like that last few weeks, that and even that last month, um, yeah, sure, ideally, you're going to have your peak week, but that it's not going to make you or break you, like if you've been doing your training, it's not going to make you or break you to have those few weeks off, like, or a couple of weeks off leading up to your race. And I think that's advice we've given in the group multiple times where somebody was like I don't know, I'm having this and I'm having this pain and I can't run and I don't know what to do, or they've gotten sick during taper.

Karmell: 42:16

That's another big one where they're like ah, I don't know what to do. My race is in three weeks and I have COVID, or you know I'm I'm down and out like I'm bedridden. Um, if you have done your, your training, it's that, like we said, tapers a time of repair. So it's like, yeah, sure, ideally you'd be moving around, getting some movement in, but like you're not getting stronger in those last few weeks anyway, so you're not going to lose fitness, um, enough fitness in that time for it to really impact your race. So that's something to not freak out about, because I think I've seen that a lot of times. Like if, if something comes up, whether it's, you know, a tweak or an illness, and you need to take that time off, that's okay. No, you don't need to cancel or not show up for your race at that point. Do you have anything to add?

Lee: 43:14

I agree completely.

Lee: 43:16

Now, you know, you do have to know your own body and there are situations where someone's got I mean, if you actually are waiting for a consult with a cardiologist because there's a real concern all of a sudden, or you're getting, you went and got a checkup and your kidneys are not functioning normally, that's, that's real.

Lee: 43:35

But yeah, if it's just mild flu or cold, especially just you know a cold, you had the sniffles you had a cough, you're going to be okay. Sniffles, you had a cough, you're going to be okay. So, in addition, I think I think like influenza and COVID are both the ones where somebody has a real severe case sometimes and they're breathing and heart are not behaving normally, they do have to actually skip. But at that point you would have spoken with a doctor because you'd be having that severe case and that doctor would have said you need to not exert yourself. So if you have a physician saying hey, no, you, actually you're going to get walking pneumonia. Or if you have walking pneumonia, don't be running when you have, when you're getting over pneumonia, like you can actually get some very bad consequences, so we're not saying ignore medical advice of the doctor.

Lee: 44:22

When you've been to the doctor and you have actually something real severe and they say you have influenza a and you're having complications.

Karmell: 44:28

You have pneumonia, there's fluid in your lungs, you are having a reaction to covid, your heart's not behaving normally like that kind of I'm more talking about like, not that they're still sick by the race, but that they think because they missed the three weeks leading up to the race absolutely um, and it's like at that point, it's fine, yeah, sure, ideally you'd be getting those shakeout runs and everything.

Lee: 44:49

But, um, yeah, if you, if you do get sick and it's like well, you'll probably be fine in two weeks, you're like, but I can't just take and recover for two weeks. Yes, you can, if you get sick, recover yourself yeah, so we covered the taper worm. The taper worm's just evil oh, that's another thing.

Karmell: 45:09

I was gonna say so when. So part of the taper worm too could be just like you have that like anxiety, like you should be doing something and like we said, you don't. You want to be careful what you do with that. One of the great things you could do with that energy is drop bag planning.

Lee: 45:28

And I don't care if you have crew, there's a whole other. There's a video about it. Does not matter what crew you have, make drop bags, unless you are super experienced and your crew is super experienced and you've been working with them for a bunch of hundreds. Oh wait, you're probably not in the project. If that's the case, your crew also doesn't really know what they're doing. Even if I come crew for you, I don't really know because I don't know you well enough personally. Even if I were crewing Carmel, she would make her own drop bags. Even if she was crewing me, I would still make drop bags. It's just better that way. I ran with a guy who borrowed my spare socks. Well, I never got them back because he had no socks and he was blistering his feet because his wife got two flat tires. She was crewing him.

Karmell: 46:10

You will hear us say this all the time. This is not an edge case hypothetical. I think it sounds like for people who don't know anybody. I think when we say, oh, your crew could get a flat tire, it sounds like an edge case hypothetical. It is not.

Karmell: 46:25

It's actually really super common because, yeah, because a lot of times some of these races to get to some of these crew points, your crew has to drive on beat up roads, non-paved roads, dirt, potholes, all of that. It's actually a pretty common thing for people to get flat tires.

Lee: 46:47

Well, and here's the next thing, though. Why else to plan?

Karmell: 46:49

your drop bags.

Lee: 46:50

Or get lost, not have cell signal, even if they get perfectly at each aid station. Why, if I knew for sure that Carmel was going to be at every aid station crewing me she knows me, she knows how to run hundreds I would still plan drop bags? Because the process of looking at the chart of where the aid stations are and where drop bags are allowed and how much time I'm going to be between those drop bag points causes me to think about what calories I need. What should I put in the drop bag? I'm not going. Oh well, carmel will just have something for me. No, I am planning out exactly what I want, when and what will I have as a fallback. A lot of times people won't be like well, what are my if my stomach turns and I can't tolerate this one brand, because that can happen. Do I have enough backups to at least scrape by? What if I lose my salt and Tums bag? Where do I put the backup?

Lee: 47:39

One, things get lost. More importantly, I'm planning to succeed, no matter what I am. You know they'll say that an Olympic gymnast visualizes the routine. So what I'm doing when I plan my drop bags and I plan what I'm going to pick up when and put in my pack. I'm visualizing my entire race, beginning to end. I'm visualizing what I'm going to need. I know it's going to be night in these areas, so I'm going to pack higher fat calories and higher caffeine calories. I know that towards the end there's some stuff that's more palatable. I'm going to pack that. Then I am picturing finishing the race. I am making a plan. I'm not going.

Lee: 48:14

Oh, they'll take care of me someone else I am going to take care of myself and get myself to this finish line, and I am thinking through how to do that in detail.

Karmell: 48:24

This is off topic and this will be a different podcast too, but I think the point is that you could use that taper time to be thinking about this stuff and to be meticulously planning. Put that anxiety into that.

Lee: 48:40

Pack your little foot kit baggies. Don't wait until the last minute.

Karmell: 48:44

Yeah, yeah, just get that all set, all right.

Lee: 48:50

So, taper, I think that covers everything, doesn't it? I think that's pretty. I hope so.

Karmell: 48:57

I think so. I think so and yeah, like I said, we're going to have it kind of prescribed out and change some of the formatting on the website so that it's it's easier to find. It is already in the resources section, but we'll be even polishing, polishing that up for you all. Yeah, I think we have to do a podcast, a separate podcast, on um crew and pacers. That's a big one for sure, like the crew pacers, like kind of everything you were just talking about, like like planning your race and then especially like planning it without crew and pacers but also being able to plan it successfully with crew and pacers.

Lee: 49:38

That's it'd be a good episode.

Karmell: 49:40

Yeah, I guess things to tell them yeah, maybe things, there's a lot of things. Yeah, there's so many things that you might not know to tell them. Oh, there's a lot of things, there's so many things.

Lee: 49:46

There are things that you might not know to tell them. If you're new, that you need to tell them, so I guess, yeah, that might be, let's not segue into that. But let's think about doing that?

Karmell: 49:54

Yeah, not right now. Yeah, food for thought. A teaser. A teaser for the patient crew podcast.

Lee: 50:01

Because you have to tell your crew ahead. If I show up at the aid station and when I try to talk, I just start crying and get choked up. This is what you do. Do not ask me what do I want? It's not going to help and the answer is we're not telling you until the Crew Pacer podcast Coca-Cola is the answer.

Karmell: 50:18

No, just joking. It's salted Coke, All right? Well, thanks for listening everybody. We'll catch you on the next one.

Lee: 50:32

I have seen the first of glory and I felt the mighty hand, the one who made all this out here and made me what I am.

Karmell: 50:45

I have heard the timbers sing and the mighty rivers roar A hymn of hymns to mountain men. I'll hear it evermore. It's the song of the trail. The song of the trail.