When should I start the Compete Program before my race?

COMPETE is not designed to begin exactly 8 weeks before race day.

It includes an additional 2-week Taper Phase to be completed immediately before your race.

Tapering is a planned reduction in training load in the final 1-2 weeks before race day. You’re not getting any fitter here - the work is already done. You’re allowing your body to recover, absorb training and show up at full capacity ready to perform at the highest level

Tapering improves your race day performance by reducing accumulated fatigue, allowing muscles to repair, resetting the nervous system, restoring energy stores and improving sharpness, speed and confidence. There’s a misconception that you might lose fitness here, but you don’t; you lose the fatigue accumulated in a heavy training cycle.

Volume declines, and intensity remains (briefly). Let’s break this down:

What Changes:

What Stays:

What’s Gone:

During a well-executed taper, you should notice that you feel fresher with each passing day. Training sessions feel easier to recover from, your energy improves, and the heavy tired feeling you might’ve carried during the Program begins to lift.

You should start to feel lighter on your feet, particularly during your runs and transitions. Movements feel smoother and effortless, and your body responds more quickly when you change pace or direction.

Your body should feel snappy and responsive. Short efforts feel sharp rather than draining, and you’re able to hit race pace without needing to amp yourself up or push excessively hard.

It’s always normal to feel more eager to train, even though the training volume has decreased. You may feel restless or like you could be “doing more”, and this is a positive sign and tells us that the Taper is working exactly as it should. The fatigue you carried throughout your Program is dropping, and your body is storing more energy rather than spending it.

Mentally, you should feel calm, focused, confident and ready as race day approaches. Instead of feeling stressed or overwhelmed, you should be prepared and reassured that the work has already been done.

You shouldn’t feel flat, heavy or sluggish. If your sessions are feeling like a grind, this can be a sign that you haven’t reduced the volume enough and might still be training too hard. Some light muscle soreness is normal, but ongoing soreness may mean that your body hasn’t been given enough opportunity to recover.

Don’t feel anxious about feeling like you’re “under training” in this phase. It’s common to worry that you’re not doing enough, but this feeling comes from doing less, not from losing fitness, and losing fitness doesn’t happen in a short taper.

Where to find these workouts?

Open the workouts screen in the App, select the + icon next to any training day, and scroll down to Coach Annabelle. After you select your workout, click “Add To Day” to see it appear on your main workouts screen.

When should I taper?

4. Race is more than 6 weeks away:

→ If your race is still far away, focus on maintaining fitness rather than pushing intensity.

5. Race is a long way away:

→ Complete the 6-week Hybrid Program to build base fitness and strength, then move into the 8-week COMPETE Program, followed immediately by the 2-week taper leading into race day.