Taper Thoughts

I think this is going to be a short entry for once. There isn't that much to say about those short runs that form the taper. I had a quick look at Pfitz's schedules for the taper, and more or less copied them (well ... maybe less). I certainly did a double take on the mileage for Monday. 6 miles? That's hardly worth getting out of bed for! I think it's a new mindset that's required here. I did as it says on paper though. Grudgingly. I already wished the taper were over.

The legs felt surprisingly stiff after that recovery run, though. Those 400s are obviously still causing havoc. In light of that, the low mileage was probably advisable. Today wasn't much longer, 8.5 miles, with the middle 4 miles at tempo pace. I tried to start those at measured pace, unlike normally when I take off like I'm escaping from the haunted bogs, but I think I still started too fast. All in all those 4 miles took 27:50, which is almost a minute longer than what I had in mind. I can still use the 400s as an excuse though. Maybe doing a tempo or speed workout every second day is a bit much at that stage, I'm not recovered from the previous effort when the next one comes along. Then again, I've only one more planned. If you're familiar with Pfitz's schedule then you know about his 3x1600 about 10 days before race day, and I'll try and tackle those on Thursday. After that, it's just recovery.

I'm really tired today. I thought I would be able to catch up on sleep over the Easter weekend, but that didn't happen. I blame it on the Full Moon, I always have troubles sleeping around that time, and I was awake before 6am every apart from Sunday (so was Shea, which certainly didn't help). At least I don't have to get up early for my runs, thanks to the reduced mileage. There's still hope that I can catch up on sleep before race day. As Mike pointed out in a recent comment, rest and nutrition are probably more important than mileage during the taper, which is a view I completely subscribe to. I'm eating healthily anyway (that's a benefit of being married to a vegetarian), apart from the Easter chocolate (I never claimed to be ascetic), but there's definitely room for improvement on the rest front. I'll work on that.

24 Mar

6 miles, 50:27, 8:24, HR 135

25 Mar

8.5 miles, 1:05:01, 7:38 pace, HR 152
including 4 miles in 27:50 @ 6:57