A quick scan of what happened over the past week.

• McIntyre and Wade Win at HYROX Miami Beach — HYROX returned to the Miami Beach Convention Center April 3–5, drawing over 14,000 athletes across three days. Hunter McIntyre dominated the Men's Pro field, winning in 53:59 — nearly two minutes clear of second-place Frédéric Dubé (55:44), with Jude Reynolds third in 56:43. It was a statement performance from McIntyre, who looked a cut above the rest of the field from start to finish. On the women's side, Rachael Wade backed up her Houston win the previous weekend with another victory, this time in 1:00:45, ahead of Morgan Schulz in 1:02:07 and Camilla Massa third in 1:03:26. Wade is quickly establishing herself as one of the most consistent Pro women on the North American circuit.

• CrossFit Quarterfinals Results Finalized — The 2026 CrossFit Quarterfinals wrapped up Monday, March 30, with final leaderboard positions confirmed. Colten Mertens topped the men's leaderboard for the second consecutive year, while Lucy Campbell led the women in what she described as her best start to a season. The top 2,000 men and women advance to one of the in-person Semifinals events or the Online Semifinals later this year.

The most undertrained skill in endurance sport.

You've done the work. Months of early mornings, hard intervals, long runs, and sessions that left you wrecked. Now race day is two weeks out — and the instinct for most athletes is to squeeze in one more hard workout, add a few extra miles, do something to feel more ready. That instinct is wrong. The final phase of race preparation is its own discipline, and most athletes get it wrong in the same direction: they do too much, too close.

Here's what actually needs to happen in the final weeks before your race.

What a taper actually is — and why it works

A taper is a planned reduction in training volume in the weeks before a race, while intensity stays relatively high. The goal is to let fatigue drop while fitness holds. These two variables don't move together — fatigue clears faster than fitness fades, which is the entire basis of the taper. Done correctly, research consistently shows a taper can improve performance by 2–6% in endurance athletes. That's not a small margin. At the physiological level, several things happen simultaneously: muscle glycogen stores top off, accumulated microscopic muscle damage repairs, your hormonal system rebalances, and your neuromuscular power output — your ability to apply force quickly — increases. You don't arrive at the start line with the same body you had at peak training. You arrive with a slightly better one.

Key takeaway: Fitness doesn't disappear in two weeks. Fatigue does. That's the entire point.

How long to taper — and by how much

Taper length depends on race distance:

For a HYROX or 5K/10K — 4-7 days is generally sufficient. These are shorter, more intense efforts. You don't need to strip back as much.

For a half marathon or Ironman 70.3 — 7-10 days. Cut total volume by 30–40% in race week.

For a full Ironman or marathon — 2–3 weeks. Reduce weekly volume by 10–20% in week one, 30–40% in week two, and keep race week light with a few short sharp efforts to maintain neuromuscular sharpness.

The key principle across all distances: cut volume, not intensity. Dropping your hard sessions entirely is what makes you feel flat and sluggish on race day. Short, sharp intervals at race pace — kept brief — preserve the neuromuscular edge that makes you feel fast.

Taper madness is real — and you need to know about it

Almost every athlete who has trained seriously for a race has experienced this: a few days into the taper, something starts to feel wrong. Your legs feel heavy. A knee that was fine last week now seems suspicious. You feel oddly tired despite doing less. You become convinced you haven't trained enough and start eyeing the calendar for one more long run. This is taper madness, and it is completely normal. Research shows up to 78% of endurance athletes experience significant anxiety and phantom aches during the taper period. The aches aren't new injuries — your training stress just dropped, and your brain suddenly has the bandwidth to register every minor sensation it was previously ignoring. The fatigue is real too: your body is in the process of repairing and restoring, and that process temporarily makes you feel worse before it makes you feel better. Trust the process. Your fitness is intact. The sharpness is coming.

Key takeaway: If you feel terrible during the taper, you're probably doing it right.

What to focus on in race week

With volume down and intensity maintained briefly, race week becomes about the controllables.

Sleep. Prioritize it above everything else. One poor night won't ruin your race, but a string of them will. Aim to bank extra sleep in the days before, since pre-race nerves often disrupt the night before the event.

Nutrition. Don't experiment! Eat the foods you've trained with. If you're racing longer than 90 minutes, carbohydrate loading in the 48 hours before the race helps top off muscle glycogen. Stick to easily digestible carbs — rice, pasta, bread — and avoid excess fiber or anything new.

Logistics. Pack your gear two days out. Know the course. Confirm your start time, check-in process, and transition setup if applicable. Every variable you resolve before race day is one less thing running in the background on race morning.

Mental prep. Use the extra time and energy to visualize your race — the start, your pacing, the moments when it gets hard, the finish. Athletes who have rehearsed the race mentally are less surprised when those moments arrive. Pre-race nerves are not a sign something is wrong. They mean you care and your body is preparing. Channel them rather than suppress them.

The one mistake that guarantees a bad race

Adding volume in the final week because you feel like you haven't done enough. It doesn't matter how good the workout feels — the fatigue it generates will not clear before race day. You can't cram for a race any more than you can cram for a fitness test. The work is already done. Your job in race week is to show up rested enough to express it.

Key takeaway: The best thing you can do for your race performance in the final week is mostly nothing. Protect your sleep, eat well, stay sharp with a couple of short sessions, and trust the training.

For Lifts: RPE 5–6 — Moderate effort. Several reps left in the tank. RPE 7 — Challenging but controlled. This is the default working effort. RPE 8 — Hard. You could do more, but quality would slip. RPE 9 — Very hard. ~1 rep left. Near max for the day. RPE 10 — Max effort. Nothing left.

For Runs: RPE 4–5 = conversational Zone 2. RPE 6–7 = threshold, hard to hold a sentence. RPE 8–9 = race effort.

If you found this useful, forward to your training partners.

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