Marathon Taper - The Complete Taper Guide including the 10 Don'ts of Marathon Tapering

A marathon taper is 2–3 weeks of reduced mileage — roughly 70–80% of peak in week 1, down to 25–35% in the final week — that lets your body absorb months of training before race day. Cut volume, not intensity: keep your intervals and tempo runs, just shorten them.

Two or three weeks of easier running feels like exactly the wrong move after months of hard training — like you are throwing away fitness right when it counts most. You are not. The runners who trust the taper show up fresh; the ones who fight it show up flat. And there is a very specific list of ways that fight plays out.

In this article I’ll cover:

What is a Marathon Taper?

Why Should I do a Marathon Taper?

How Long Should I Taper?

How Should I Decrease My Mileage During the Marathon Taper?

Decrease mileage, not intensity

What Should I Eat During a Marathon Taper?

The 10 Don'ts of Marathon Tapering


What is a Marathon Taper?

The marathon taper is the period just before your race. It runs for two or three weeks (more on that below). The purpose is simple — you get much-needed rest after months of training.


Why Should I Do a Marathon Taper?

Those months of training take their toll. Week by week, you get progressively more tired — and only rest fixes that.

But, you might say, won’t I lose my fitness? I have worked so hard all this time and now you want me to rest up for two or three weeks? What’s up with that? Have you lost your mind?

Or something slightly less aggressive…

Here is the thing: marathon training grinds you down as the weeks progress. At some point, continuing to train hard becomes counterproductive. All it does is make you more tired — it does not make you faster anymore.


Think about cramming for an exam over several weeks. Long days, late nights, studying every spare minute.

Eventually your mind stops absorbing information. You hit a wall. The two pages that took you 45 minutes yesterday now take 10 minutes after a proper night’s sleep. Everything clicks again.

That is exactly what the marathon taper does for your body. It gives you rest, your legs and mind become fresh, and you arrive on race day ready to roar — not fatigued.




How Long Should I Taper?

Opinions vary on this — and in reality it depends on the training schedule you have used and on you personally. If you have followed a more traditional high-mileage schedule, I’d recommend a three-week taper.

If your schedule was less focused on high mileage and more on quality workouts, two weeks can be sufficient.

Every marathon training schedule you will come across uses either two or three weeks. That range exists for a reason.

Anything shorter will not give you sufficient time to rest up. Anything longer is unnecessarily drawn out and will start to compromise your fitness.

Making up your own schedule and not sure what to do? Go for three weeks.


How Should I Decrease My Mileage During the Marathon Taper?

Here are the general guidelines for cutting your mileage during the taper:

Week 1: Reduce your mileage to about 70-80% of highest weekly mileage

Week 2: Reduce your mileage to about 50% of highest weekly mileage

Week 3: Reduce your mileage to about 25-35% of highest weekly mileage

Your age and how quickly you recover are both important factors here — your taper may look slightly different from the runner next to you.

Eat well and look after yourself during the taper

That said, the guidelines above make sense for most of us.

As we get older and recovery takes longer, peak mileage tends to be somewhat lower anyway — so the percentages still hold.


The rules above work for most of us. Keep them simple and stick to them.


Reduce Mileage, Not Intensity

The biggest mistake I see runners around me make is treating the marathon taper as a period of only easy running. They think they need to cut both mileage and speed. They are wrong.

This can kill many marathon dreams.

It leaves you with “stale legs” — that awful feeling at the end of three weeks that you have lost all ability to run fast.

Keep doing your intervals. Keep doing your tempo runs. Just make them shorter, in line with the guidelines above.

For example: if a normal interval session is 12 x 400m, make it 4 x 400m in week 3. That is actually a great session to fire up the legs one final time before your marathon — without overexerting yourself. Just make sure you complete that last session at least four days out from race day.


What Should I Eat During a Marathon Taper?


During the taper — as throughout your whole marathon training — eat well and eat sensibly. Do not overeat or undereat. You may well find you need slightly less food during the taper as your mileage drops.

That said, gaining 2–4 pounds (1–2 kilos) during this period is not a problem. In the final week you need to carbo-load — eating extra carbohydrates to top up your glycogen levels. Do this in the last 3–5 days before your marathon.

Stay hydrated too. Drink a little extra water in the lead-up to race day.

On alcohol: I would recommend avoiding it. We are all human, not machines — so a glass of wine with dinner a couple of nights per week is not going to derail you. Just be sensible about it.

I explain more about marathon diet on the marathon training nutrition page.


The 10 Don'ts of Marathon Tapering

Now, the 10 don’ts of marathon tapering. Some of these I have touched on already — here they are all together, with short explanations:


1. Don’t Reduce the Intensity of Your Runs

Keep doing your intervals and tempo runs — just reduce the length of your sessions.

One more point specific to week 1: do not slash your mileage too hard, too fast. Some runners treat the start of taper as a green light to cut mileage in half overnight — resist that. A gentle 20–30% cut in week 1 is plenty, consistent with the 70–80% of peak mileage guideline above. The real drop comes in weeks 2 and 3, not week 1 — cut too hard immediately and you risk flat, heavy legs before your taper has even properly started.


2. Don’t Cram in a Last Long Run

If you have missed some training, the urge to cut your taper short and squeeze in a final long run — or another high-mileage week — will be strong.

Don’t do it.

The marathon taper is an absolutely essential ingredient to marathon success. You need that rest. Even when your training has not gone to plan, taking the rest is almost always the better call.
 

3. Don’t Make Up for Your PERCEIVED Loss of Fitness in Another Way

Do not decide that because you are running less, you can fill the gap with a long bike ride or extra weight lifting. The purpose of the taper is to give your body a rest. Swap the running effort for another sport and you are not resting. Simple as that.


4. Don’t Second Guess the Taper

You will get that feeling. “Actually, I feel great. I’m not tired at all anymore. I reckon I recover exceptionally well — I could handle a bit more training.”

Chances are you are not superhuman.

Don’t give in to feelings of nervousness or feelings that you have got this all under control. Take the time to rest up and give your body a break. The big race is less than three weeks away — save your energy for that, not for last-minute training.



5. Don’t Get a Massage in the Last Week

A professional sports massage can be excellent — it loosens up the muscles and can help keep niggles at bay. But did you know that a deep-tissue massage actually counts as a hard training day? It does.

My advice: no massage in the last week before the marathon. It will do more harm than good. More than one week out? No problem at all — but keep that final week clear.


6. Don’t Do Quality Runs in the Last Three Days Before Your Marathon

By quality runs I mean intervals, tempo runs, and long runs. There is no place for any of them in the last three days before race day. Stick to easy 20- or 30-minute efforts — enough to keep the legs warm and the lactic acid moving, nothing more.


7. Don’t Go to the Expo or the Pasta Party

Oops, hope no race organisers are reading this… :)

I’d urge you to be cautious about the marathon expo or the pasta party. When it is busy, you will spend a lot of time on your feet within 24 hours of race day.

Some of us consider it part of the experience — something not to be missed. Fair enough, but keep in mind that the next day you will be running for three, four, five hours or more, depending on your ability.

If you go, keep it short. Do not spend the whole day on your feet.



8. Don’t Go Crazy with Sightseeing

Ever spent a long weekend exploring a new city? It gets you tired. When your marathon is in a city you have never visited before, the urge to go exploring is completely understandable — but it is a trap.

A full day wandering from one landmark to the next is exactly what you do not want in the days before your race.

Do not spend a whole day running around from one place to the other just before your marathon. If you want to do some sightseeing, book a bus tour or find an option that keeps you off your feet as much as possible.

You can always save some sightseeing for after the marathon — though many of us can barely walk the day after, so factor that in.

Do your sightseeing early in the week preceding your marathon. The last two or three days should be focused on race day. You do not need to live like a recluse — just be sensible. Want to spend a couple of hours in a museum? Go for it. Just sit down whenever you can and do not spend all day on your feet.


9. Don’t Let it All Be. Control Everything You Can Control

I once listened to a talkback radio session with elite athletes talking about preparing for big events. Their motto was: “Control everything you can control.”

Knowing where bag drop-off is, when you need to be there, and how to get there — these simple things make a real difference to your nerves on race day.

Study the course map and know where the hills are. I have spoken to fellow competitors who were completely caught off guard by a steep hill near the end of a race.

When you know it is there, you can prepare for it.

Controlling everything you can control means fewer surprises and less to worry about on the day.

Take it further: plan your days in the lead-up to race day in detail. Know when you will eat, what you will eat, and when you will go to bed.

This sounds obvious — but if you are travelling to another city and are not in your normal home environment, your usual routine goes out the window. City trips have a way of making us live a little less sensibly than usual.


10. Don’t Get Unrealistic Goals in Your Head

When you step up to the start line, you need a realistic idea of the time you are going to run. Base that on recent races and recent training — not wishful thinking.

Check out the marathon pace page of this website to work out what a reasonable time would be for your marathon. And then check the marathon pacing strategy page to work out how to achieve your marathon goal (click pics below to get access to these very useful pages).


Nail your marathon taper and you will arrive on race day feeling genuinely good.

Great marathon tapering can be the difference between a personal best and a race you would rather forget.

Focus on it. And enjoy the reduced mileage — you have earned it after months of hard training.

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