I'll start off by saying that there's a lot more that goes into a taper than simply what you do running wise (which is all I'm going to write about here). Your stress levels, nutrition, cross-training, sleep etc. all play a large part in the success or otherwise of a taper period in freshening you up for an event.
When I was tapering recently for my first ever 50k road race, it was suggested to me by a friend that it didn't seem that I was really tapering all that much - to them I was running pretty much the same days as I was during my heavy training cycles. That observation was true, however a quality taper is not all about the quantity of running. Let me explain...
In my opinion, the taper (or the full training cycle for that matter) can be broken into three components:
QUANTITY - the number of running sessions you are doing in a cycle (let's use a week for this discussion)
DURATION - the length of each individual session (also accumulates to time-on-feet over the cycle)
INTENSITY - how hard you work in a given session (ditto RE accumulation of intensity over the cycle)
Quantity is an easy one to observe and measure.
If I run once daily, 5 days a week I am obviously doing 5 sessions in my weekly cycle. This is what my friend observed - they saw me running 5 sessions a week in my heavy training, still running 5 sessions a week during my taper period, and questioned whether I was in fact tapering. A fair question - my quantity was unchanged - but looks can be deceiving.
What I was doing in my taper was reducing both the duration and intensity of my runs.
During my heavy training I had worked up to 3+ hr long runs on a Sunday. During my taper I continued to run on Sunday, however I reduced the duration of the long runs down to as little as 60-90mins in the weeks preceding the event. A big difference. The duration of my other sessions was often reduced too - e.g. a 75min mid-week run became 60mins. All these changes to individual sessions add up to a significant decrease in the work you are putting the body through in the taper period.
Ditto with the intensity; e.g. during my heavy training I was doing sessions of 45-60mins of solid tempo or interval work (plus warm up and cool down), yet during my taper I changed several of these sessions to easy runs (of the same duration), or ran the intervals at considerably slower paces. Again, it all adds up to make a big difference.
So, the question you may ask is - "why vary duration and intensity, but not quantity?". Well, FOR ME (may not hold true for you), I've found that my body works best when it continues to move. When I reduce the number of run sessions that I'm doing I often feel flat and heavy. This is less than ideal come event day! By keeping up the quantity of runs I stay sharp on my feet and, combined with the reduced workload due to the changes in duration and intensity, I feel fresh come race time. And at the end of the day, if you're training for an event that's all you can ask for from your training - to be prepared, healthy and fresh. What happens on race day happens.
What do you think? What makes up a good taper for you?