Sage's Pre-Race Taper Session
Workout - Sage's Pre-Race Taper Session
- 10min @ 5'00''/km
- 8 lots of:
- 1min @ 6'00''/mi
- 1min rest
- 5.0km @ 3'22''/km
- 10min @ 5'00''/km
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Intro: Here’s what we pulled from COPENHAGEN MARATHON VLOG UPDATE: 10 DAYS OUT! by Vo2maxProductions — it’s worth the full watch. We’ll walk you through the workout so you can test it yourself this week. The video has plenty more context worth catching.
Key Points:
- Sage is deep in the taper, dropping weekly volume to 70‑75 mi (≈120 km) and keeping his long run relaxed at 14 mi to maintain fitness without accumulating fatigue.
- Managing the elements becomes critical—staying warm and cutting wind resistance through layers (rain jacket, long pants) helps guard against hypothermia if race day brings wet and windy conditions.
- What makes this speed session work is its structure: 8 × 1‑minute surges with 1‑minute recovery, finished by a 3‑mi tempo. It’s a textbook case of building workouts around your race goal, which Mastering Interval Training: Science-Backed Workouts and How a Smart App Can Personalize Them explores. But there’s a central difference from Mastering 5K Speed: Proven Interval Strategies to Cut Minutes off Your Time—you’re not going all-out here. The short surges practice leg turnover, while the tempo anchors that race-day feeling.
- The final 3-mile tempo at “comfortably hard” pace builds that marathon-day confidence. Sustained efforts like this appear across every training plan—shorter races too—as our Mastering the 10K: Proven Training Plans, Pace Strategies, and How a Smart App Can Elevate Your Performance breaks down.
Workout Example:
Warm‑up: 10‑15 min easy jog
8 × [1 min @ ~6:00 min/mi (≈350 sec/km) + 1 min easy jog]
Cool‑down: 3‑mile steady at 5:20‑5:30 min/mi (≈3:20‑3:25 min/km)
Total: ~30‑35 minScale the paces to your marathon goal—the surges run faster than race pace, the tempo sits at that comfortably hard effort.
Closing Note: Put this taper-safe workout into your week, adjust the paces to fit your zones, and track it in the Pacing app. You’ve got Copenhagen—go run it.