The Taper.
There is a point to the long (whoah), convoluted, stream of consciousness rambling below. It's that the taper is not one size fits all. If it's not working for you or you find yourself consistently feeling like you're not fresh in a certain, or all, disciplines, try something new. You can use your less important races to test new approaches.
I've been thinking about it lately since my fabulous return to the pool, and I often do as I don't seem to fit in the mold of standard tapering. There's a few things I've learned over the years about myself that started as gut instinct, then was let go to try new ways, only to return to what my instincts told me and proved to be the right way for me. The taper is one of those things.
Tapering is very unique to the individual. Most plans and coaches follow the most widely practiced method of tapering overall load in volume and intensity over the course of days or weeks (length depending on the event you're tapering for), and starting the taper at the same time for each discipline.
Some taper each discipline starting at different points of time beginning with the most strenuous on the body, running, with the least strenuous, swimming, being the last discipline to start the taper.
Others reduce either volume or intensity to a greater relative degree than the other and some do so by cutting out workouts.
Some go through a recovery week before heading into a reduced work week prior to race day.
Every approach or combination of approaches works for someone. What's right for you?
Personally, I've found that I need to maintain the frequency of my workouts, while generally reducing volume only minimally, but I need to cut back a lot on intensity. Some may get "stale" if they cut back too much on intensity, but what informs my needs are both biomechanical (injury prevention - my pelvis actually falls out of alignment if I stop running - go figure) issues, and the fact that anything but just very short sharpeners doesn't allow my cycling and swimming muscles enough time to recover for race day.
Something that instinct has told me is that I need to taper in reverse of the "stressful discipline". I've always felt I've needed more time to recover and freshen up on the bike, with less time to do so on the run. Swimming I felt I needed more time as well, but was always afraid to because of the fear of "losing my feel for the water."
When I think about it, this reverse approach falls parallel to both the intensity at which I was training in each discipline as well as to my history and training age in each discipline. I am newest to swimming, have been cycling for several years (but only training hard for 3), and I have been running to some degree or another for my whole life. My training load according to the plan I was following the last 2 years had very little high intensity work on the run, with a lot on the bike and swim.
When I took 8 days off swimming at the end of the season, I got back in the pool on the first workout back and banged out my fastest paces to date at very little effort in comparison and I felt strong and my form was better than ever. 8 days of zero swimming. I did not lose feel for the water.
Now had this been prior to my elevated training after starting to swim with Craig this spring, I feel that I may not have had the same result. I wasn't conditioned enough and didn't have the proper form/coordination then. And the elevated load in training, meant a new level of development and needed adaptation for my muscles. Prior to this year I was still a "beginner" swimmer and that amount of time off would have caused me to lose fitness and feel.
So in all, there's many factors to consider when trying to determine the right approach to your taper. You can start with what most people use such as (for a 1/2 IM distance race) a 10-14 day reduced training load in volume and intensity with intensity being shorter periods of race pace work and very short intervals of high intensity work to sharpen the system up, wake up the nervous system and prep your body to deal more efficiently with lactic acid. Then adjust from there and look at each discipline separately. You don't need to taper each the same way or for the same amount of time. Consider how long you've been doing each, how hard you've been training each in relation to the other disciplines, how well you recover from high intensity sessions of each, does you body prefer to stay on schedule and maintain frequency or cut out workouts to reduce volume. Maybe you'd do better with a week or 4-5 day recovery block followed by a 7-10 day taper week with elevated intensity and reduced volume. Many options.
As far as training age/experience goes, a beginner would be mostly focused on developing skills and their aerobic system. They would not need too much of a taper. Slightly shortened workouts with a day or two of rest thrown into the mix.
An intermediate athlete who is building on that base is conditioning at a higher level and their muscles have more to adapt to. They are under a greater amount of "new" stress as they are building their muscular endurance and force. They may more likely need a more aggressive taper to fully recover for race day. Using myself as example, this is the case with swimming. I have 3 years of swimming under my belt, but only started building on the endurance and (skills) with "real" intensive training this year. It was a lot to adapt to. Perfectly doable, but it required more rest than previously. And as it turns out, much more than I was giving it before races.
An advanced athlete who has been training hard at a given discipline for a long time is really just fine tuning and rehearsing. They have less room for growth and therefore are growing less. The stress may be great, but their bodies have less adapting to do. They would probably lean towards the moderate/typical taper and could handle keeping intensity elevated higher than the intermediate and beginner athlete.
From what I've seen, any athlete at a point in their training life that is training with high intensity, the discipline that is the athlete's weakness or newest needs the greater taper.
My next trial approach for myself next year will be to taper starting with the swim, then the bike, and then the run, cutting volume in each respectively, but maintaining frequency and significantly reducing intensity for all by 7-10 days out from the event. If I'm cooked by the end of the cycle, I'll take a multi day recovery block and then my taper week, elevating the intensity a little more than I would have without the recovery block.
Consider varying your taper according to your needs by discipline.