Tapering

[englishteacher78]

Is it really necessary to do a 'proper' taper for a 5km? I was going to reduce my long run the week before but would it be silly to run a ParkRun aiming for a PB (as you get an official time) the week before Race For Life?

I don't think you need to 'taper', but it won't hurt to have 3 easy days before the race, so your legs are fresh.

Tapers only really apply to longer runs where you don't want to tire out the muscles too much before race day, but I think with 5k you'll be fine because you'll recover pretty quickly.

Good luck with your pb!

For short durations like 5km, you may well find that easy days are counter productive, for me to get a 5km PB, I need to have done a mile at nearly max effort the day before. Otherwise I just end up going slower.

Tapers are to remove fatigue, it's unlikely that you have any significant fatigue if you've been comfortably doing the distance regularly in training. If it is still a big run for you then making sure you do nothing hard to create fatigue the days before would be sensible.