Taper????

Well it is now 13 days until Ironman Wisconsin. I'm back to feeling very confident. I know that I will finish and that really helps to take a lot of the pressure off. I still have it in my head that I would like to come in close to 11 hours. That will mostly depend on what the day gives me. I truly believe that the fitness is there and if I EXECUTE on race day it will happen. Of course that is the biggest challenge on race day. Executing the plan and making it through the dark periods that we all face during an IM.
I am attempting a different type of taper that I believe will help on race day. In years past with Ironman and marathons I've done 2-3 week tapers. After reading posts by ChuckieV and talking with Zach Ruble. I am going with very little taper. While both of these guys essentially say that training through the race will give you the best results I have decided to train through but at a slightly lower volume. I am still doing hard efforts this week and next week but the volume this week will be at approximately 90% of the last few weeks and next week will be at 65%. As always it is an experiment and the results are purely subjective. How can you really measure the effectiveness of a taper? If I feel good on race day it was a success, if I'm tired it didn't work out so well. Stay tuned for the results.