Planning My Taper for the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games

After two extremely long weekend training sessions in a row, I’ve reached an important point in my preparation for the 2026 Huntsman World Senior Games: deciding when to stop building fitness and start allowing that fitness to show.

My first swimming event is October 7, which leaves a little more than eight weeks.

The conclusion I’ve reached is that it’s too early for the actual taper—but it’s exactly the right time for a recovery and consolidation week.

Because of some health-related considerations, I’m also planning a somewhat longer taper than many swimmers might use. Rather than waiting until the final week or two, my formal taper will begin around September 17, approximately 20 days before my first race.

The Basic Plan

The next eight weeks aren’t simply going to be “train hard until taper.”

I’m dividing them into four phases:

1. Recovery and consolidation

After two unusually demanding weekends, I’ll reduce volume for a week and give my body an opportunity to absorb the training I’ve already done.

This isn’t the taper. It’s recovery between training blocks.

2. Race-specific training

After the recovery week, I’ll return to normal training, but the emphasis will increasingly move away from accumulating distance and toward the events I’ll actually be racing:

• 1500m Freestyle
• 800m Freestyle
• 200m Breaststroke
• 100m Breaststroke

The endurance base is largely established. The objective now is converting that endurance into sustainable race pace, efficient technique, and speed.

3. Final quality block

The first half of September will contain the final serious race simulations and benchmark workouts.

After approximately September 13, there isn’t much additional fitness to be gained that will outweigh the risk of carrying fatigue into October.

4. The taper

My formal taper begins around September 17.

Training volume will progressively decline while race-specific intensity remains. The idea isn’t to stop swimming or simply swim easily for three weeks.

It’s to remove fatigue without allowing the adaptations from months of training to disappear.

Training Calendar

August 2026

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10 Recovery	11 Recovery	12 Recovery	13 Recovery	14 Recovery	15 Recovery
16 Recovery	17 Build	18 Build	19 Build	20 Build	21 Build	22 Build
23 Build	24 Build	25 Build	26 Build	27 Build	28 Build	29 Build
30 Build	31 Build

August goal: Absorb the recent heavy workload, then return to race-specific training.

The biggest change will probably be the weekend sessions. I don’t need another enormous workout every Saturday simply to demonstrate that I can complete the distance. Long sessions still have a place, but quality is becoming more important than raw volume.

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September 2026

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
		1 Build	2 Build	3 Build	4 Build	5 Build
6 Build	7 Final Quality	8 Final Quality	9 Final Quality	10 Final Quality	11 Final Quality	12 Final Quality
13 Final Test	14 Transition	15 Transition	16 Transition	17 TAPER	18 TAPER	19 TAPER
20 TAPER	21 TAPER	22 TAPER	23 TAPER	24 TAPER	25 TAPER	26 TAPER
27 TAPER	28 TAPER	29 TAPER	30 TAPER

September goal: Finish the fitness-building phase and gradually shift the priority from accumulating fitness to eliminating fatigue.

The September 7–13 period will be particularly important. That’s where I want the final meaningful race simulations.

After that, I’m no longer trying to prove fitness in training.

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October 2026

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1 TAPER	2 TAPER	3 TAPER
4 TAPER	5 TAPER	6 Pre-Race	7 RACE

October goal: Arrive at the starting block rested, sharp, and ready to race.

What the Taper Will Look Like

I’m planning approximately a three-week taper, with training volume declining progressively.

A rough target is:

Period	Training Volume	Objective
Aug. 10–16	60–70%	Recovery/consolidation
Aug. 17–Sep. 6	Normal	Race-specific development
Sep. 7–13	Normal/slightly reduced	Final quality workouts
Sep. 14–16	~80%	Transition
Sep. 17–23	~70%	Taper begins
Sep. 24–30	~50–60%	Shed accumulated fatigue
Oct. 1–5	~30–40%	Freshness and speed
Oct. 6	Very light	Pre-race
Oct. 7	RACE	Time to find out if the plan worked

These percentages aren’t intended to dictate every workout. They’re guidelines for controlling overall workload.

Importantly, volume decreases much more than intensity.

I’ll still include short race-pace efforts, starts, turns, and technically good swimming. What disappears is much of the repetitive distance surrounding those efforts.

Why I’m Taking a Longer Taper

There isn’t one perfect taper for every athlete.

Age, training history, accumulated fatigue, race distances, recovery rate, and individual health considerations all affect how quickly someone recovers from a heavy training block.

For me, health-related recovery considerations make a somewhat longer taper appropriate.

That doesn’t mean three weeks of resting.

It means progressively reducing the amount of work while maintaining enough intensity to keep the body prepared to race.

I’d much rather arrive in Utah wondering whether I could have done one more hard workout than arrive wondering whether I did one too many.

The Long Workouts Have Done Their Job

This may be the most important realization at this stage of training.

I’ve now completed two extremely long weekend workouts in consecutive weeks.

Those sessions had a purpose. They helped establish endurance and demonstrated that I can handle substantial workloads.

But repeating enormous sessions every weekend doesn’t necessarily produce better results.

Eventually the cost of the workout begins exceeding the benefit.

The focus now changes from:

“How much work can I complete?”

to:

“How fast and efficiently can I swim the events I’m actually racing?”

That means more attention to race pace, turns, starts, breaststroke technique, pacing discipline, and maintaining form while swimming fast.

Sixty Days to Go

The temptation this far from a major competition is to keep adding work.

More meters. Longer sessions. Another benchmark. Another test.

But training isn’t just the work itself.

Training = stress + recovery + adaptation.

The last two weekends provided plenty of stress.

This week provides recovery.

Then comes another focused training block.

And beginning September 17, the objective changes again. At that point I’m not trying to build significantly more fitness.

I’m trying to uncover the fitness I’ve already built.

October 7 is the test—not the workouts leading up to it.