Hi,

I have been training pretty hard all year, but lately in my races I seem to be falling short on the run, my legs seem to be tired and they will not fire.

So far this year I have done:
4.19.08 | Kinetic Half Ironman, VA
5.04.08 | Xterra Unwharrie, NC
5.25.08 | Xterra Smith Lake, NC
6.15.08 | Xterra Richmond, VA
6.29.08 | Xterra Trimax, PA
7.13.08 | Xterra EX2, MD

And I plan to do two or three more xterra's and maybe another road race. My next xterra is in three weeks, do you think I should back way off to try to recover? How much do you think I should do over the next few weeks?

Usually I fit in a few mtb training rides, sometimes a road ride, a track workout and a training run as well as several swims, though the swimming is my strongest and lately has just been to stretch out, but for the past few months there has been a race every other week.

Thanks!
Alicia

Tapering for races involved cutting your training. There are three aspects of training: volume, intensity and frequency (ie how many sessions) so reducing any of these three can reduce the stress on your body from training. Depending on how much you do for training you can decide where the fatigue may be coming from. If you only do one run per week and it is long and super hard, it would be advisable to reduce the volume or intensity of that one run... not so much the frequency because no running is probably not the best strategy.

First is looking at how many days recovery you take after your last event. Some XTERRAs take me a full five days to recover from (Temecula this year was a BEAR to come back from) and some only two days (Richmond was cake in comparison) so first you need to be 100% recovered before you start training.

When you are recovered you need to look at the number of days you have until your next event. From that event, count back. The day before is a warmup, the day before that I would take complete rest. Three days away you can be doing some training depending on how long you want to taper for the race. Remember, you will not affect your AEROBIC fitness for the race within 10 days of the event but you can still build some SPEED. That said, if you want to race all of the time you may experience some de-training if you NEVER do any work all summer. So prioritizing races to determine tapers is important.

If you are blowing on the run you probably are tired. I would rest more after races and do short training sessions to find your speed again and then rest into the race. Better to race undertrained than overcooked.

Ciao, Melanie