If you’re looking to arrive on the start line as fresh and fast as possible, we’ve worked with Benita Willis, one of Australia’s running legends to help provide you with tapering guidelines for the 5/10/21 and 42 km distances.

Who is Polar?

For the past four decades, we have spent every day in search of undeniable truths about the human body. Why?

Because we are pioneers. Since 1977 we’ve been building wearable devices to help improve people’s personal guides for their fitness, sport and health.
Because we’re passionate. We simply want to help people understand their body better, improve their happiness, and live a happier life. We do this through our running watches, heart rate monitors, ecosystem (Polar Flow) and content.

We’ve worked with our experts to help support the Village Roadshow Themeparks Gold Coast Marathon to help bring you the best content to support your running journey.

From our virtual running clinics we’ve captured running topics to help you be at your best. In this session we’re covering all you need to know about tapering before a race.

Our Expert

Benita Willis is truly one of Australia’s greatest runners. A four time Olympian and World Cross Country Champion, she has held the majority of the national distance running records and is also the director and outstanding coach of Lace Up Running. 

What is Tapering? 

It can be a tricky time for runners as we get closer to a race. Tapering is all about reducing the running intensity/volume to freshen up for race day, and is really important for races between 5-42 km. Tapering helps your body absorb the hard work you’ve done, and build your fuel stores ahead of racing.  

It’s very important in the final lead up weeks, not to do your “great” performance in training. Check out our guides below on how you can taper well for your upcoming race. 

The most important tapering advice? 

You don’t want to overthink it and stress about things that are out of your control. Enjoy the process and relax, you’ll simply run better on the day. 

Whatever you do, don’t do too much in the last three weeks before a race.

Webinar – For the full view of our webinar: See below

Tapering Video Playlist

Regardless of the distance you are chasing, we’ve also broken the playlist into separate topics so you can easily find the most relevant content for you.

Here you will find the specific chapter guidelines for tapering for the 5/10/21 or 42km distances: Watch Here

Getting your pacing right

You should have a specific goal time in mind. If you have an accurate watch for heart rate/pace tracking it should give you a very good idea of your race pacing.

Four things you MUST be tracking in your running

There are running essentials you can track to help guide your best running performance. See the video below for pace/heart rate tracking, race pace, recovery and nutrition tracking: See below

The NEW Polar Pacer series of running watches

To help support runners, Polar have released our brand new running watches – the Polar Pacer series. Whether you are chasing PB’s or looking to fall in love with running, they offer the runners everything you need to do one simple thing: Run. 

Incredibly light, purpose built running watches – do checkout the all new Polar Pacer running watches today. Shipping now, free and fast delivery. 

Polar Running Club

If you are looking for the best running content, simply sign up and verify for the Polar Running Club, it’s free.