Taper, as used within the running community, represents a decrease in training intensity within the days preceding a race. The prevailing sentiment is you do not want to train so intensely you have depleted your energy reserves for race day. I have adopted a two day no running taper approach.
Many years ago when I had time to play video games, I recall a fair amount of games contained some variant of an energy level indicator. If you were accosted by some menacing character and incurred bodily harm, your energy level or meter was depleted. In order to restore your energy levels to a healthy state you had to either rest or avert any further physical punishment.
There is no escaping the fact running takes a toll on your body. The recuperative or recovery phase immediately following a workout is extremely import in maintaining your ability to train on a regular basis over the long term. If you do not allow ample time for your body to recover from your workouts, you greatly increase the risk of injury. In addition, because your energy meter never resets back to 100%, your training performances will deteriorate.
I am not sure if my self imposed two days of rests helps or hurts me on race day, but I at least eliminate the excuse I was tired as an alibi for a poor race day performance. (This course has two turnarounds or places where you need to stop in the direction you were running and go the opposite direction. Should only add a couple of seconds to my finishing time.)
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