. And most importantly, the average performance improvement by the subjects who tapered in these studies was three per cent. That could equate to as much as five to 10 minutes in a marathon. The review’s main conclusion was that, "The primary aim of the taper

« Two weeks to goDuring the last week of your taper, things can get ugly. Two weeks ago, you ran 20 miles in a single run, but now you shouldn’t even be totalling that distance in the whole week before the race. And as your mileage plummets, your

with the injury demons by increasing weekly mileage by no more than 10 per cent, separating long runs, tempo runs and speed workouts by at least 48 hours, and understanding that more isn't always more. "There is evidence that clocking over 45 miles weekly can

inspired the trend in 1954 with epic sessions like 10 x 200 metres followed by 50 x 400 metres – a combined 13.67 miles of speedwork. Ambitious runners the world over have aspired to that imposing standard ever since, in a quest for that elusive PB