Am I losing fitness? Should I squeeze one more long run in? Why do my legs feel worse now than they did three weeks ago when I was running twice as much?

Welcome to the taper. Sixteen weeks of training and it’s the last three that mess with everyone’s head.

I’ll be honest, for years I didn’t taper properly. I’d race a half three weeks out and call it a long run, and keep piling it on. It worked until it didn’t. The difference between my 2:51 at Hull and the year I fell apart on the same course wasn’t training, it was turning up with something left.

What a taper is for

You don’t get fitter in the last three weeks. That work was done back in the winter.

The taper lets you get at the fitness you’ve already built. All through a block you’re carrying fatigue, so it’s in there but buried. Take the volume away and it surfaces. That’s the entire job.

Three weeks, roughly

Three out. Last proper long run. About 80 per cent of peak week overall. One session, shortened. Still feels like training.

Two out. Down to 60 per cent. Long run drops to 10 or 12 miles. Keep a bit of quality at marathon pace, something like 4 x 1 mile, to remind the legs what it feels like.

Race week. About 40 per cent. Short, easy, a few strides so you don’t feel like a plank on the start line. Nothing hard. Nothing new.

Keep the intensity, cut the volume

This is the bit people get backwards. They run the same distance and slow it all down, then wonder why they feel flat.

Other way round. Cut the volume hard, keep a small amount of pace work right up to a few days before. Volume is what’s making you tired. A short sharp session isn’t.

The taper madness

Everyone gets it. Ten days out your legs go heavy, a calf that’s been fine for four months develops a phantom twinge, and you become certain you’re getting a cold.

Normal. Passes. Your body’s repairing things it’s been putting off for weeks, and that heaviness is the repair happening, not fitness draining away.

The other symptom is the urge to test yourself. Don’t. There is no session in the last fortnight that makes you faster, and several that make you slower.

Don’t

• New shoes, new gels, new anything
• Cram in a long run you missed. It’s gone
• Overhaul your food because you read something
• Spend race week on your feet at an expo

I’m three months out from Valencia as I write this, and I’ll be doing exactly what I’ve told you above. Trust the work. You did it. The taper just lets it out.

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My personalised marathon plans have the taper written in week by week, so you’re not guessing in the bit where guessing costs most.