Race-week taper

The taper is where good fitness is either sharpened or wasted. This recipe makes the assistant ground the taper in your real fitness trajectory and race-week calendar, then hand you a day-by-day outline — without touching your events.

When to use this

7-14 days out from a goal event.
When you are unsure how much to cut and want a TSB target for race morning.
To sanity-check a taper you have already drafted.

The recipe

I have a [RACE TYPE — e.g. hilly road race, ~3h] on [RACE_DATE]. Plan my
taper. Use icuvisor with my intervals.icu data.

1. Read my athlete profile, and my calendar events around race week to
   confirm the race and what is already scheduled.
2. Pull my fitness trend (CTL / ATL / TSB) and training-load summary for
   the last 6 weeks.
3. Pull my recent activities and my recent wellness.
4. Project where form (TSB) lands on race day under a reduced taper load.

Then give me:
- A day-by-day taper outline from today to race day: load, intensity, and
  the key sharpening sessions.
- The target TSB for race morning, and whether my current trajectory
  reaches it.
- Wellness signals to watch this week.

Rules: do not write or delete calendar events — give me the outline to apply
myself. Do not invent fitness numbers; if the window is short on data, say so.

What icuvisor does

Step	Tool	Why
1	`get_athlete_profile`, `get_events`	Confirms the race and race-week calendar.
2	`get_fitness`, `get_training_summary`	CTL/ATL/TSB and recent load to taper from.
3	`get_activities`, `get_wellness_data`	Freshness and recovery signals.
4	`get_fitness_projection`	Simulates race-day TSB under the proposed taper load.

A good answer looks like

Taper to [RACE_DATE] — 8 days out. Current CTL 71, ATL 84, TSB -13 (get_fitness).
Race-morning target: TSB +15 to +20 for a 3-hour race. get_fitness_projection shows that holding ~45% of your recent weekly load this week lands TSB at +17 — on target. Cutting harder risks going flat; cutting less leaves you racing tired.
Day Session Load
-8 Sat Endurance 2h, 2x10min tempo 95
-7 Sun Easy 1h 35
-6 Mon Rest 0
-5 Tue 75min, 4x3min at race pace 65
-4 Wed Easy 45min 28
-3 Thu 50min, 3x90s openers 38
-2 Fri Rest or 30min spin 0-20
-1 Sat 40min, 3x1min openers 30
Watch this week: resting HR and HRV should drift up as fatigue clears — a drop mid-week means the taper is too light on rest, not too heavy. Sleep is your biggest lever now.
Apply this in intervals.icu yourself — I have not changed any events.

Day	Session	Load
-8 Sat	Endurance 2h, 2x10min tempo	95
-7 Sun	Easy 1h	35
-6 Mon	Rest	0
-5 Tue	75min, 4x3min at race pace	65
-4 Wed	Easy 45min	28
-3 Thu	50min, 3x90s openers	38
-2 Fri	Rest or 30min spin	0-20
-1 Sat	40min, 3x1min openers	30

Variations

Short taper: “…I can only taper for 5 days” — ask for a compressed outline.
Multi-day event: “…this is a 3-day stage race” — ask for taper plus inter-stage recovery notes.
Already drafted: paste your taper and ask the assistant to critique it against your fitness trend.

Why this prompt works

Projection-anchored. get_fitness_projection turns “rest up” into a specific load percentage that hits a TSB number — testable, not vibes.
No-write rule. Race week is the worst time for an accidental calendar edit. Explicitly forbidding writes keeps the assistant advisory.
Wellness watch. Adding the freshness signals to monitor makes the taper adaptive instead of a fixed script.

ℹ️

The race_week_taper MCP prompt runs this workflow and validates the race date before starting.

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