Yes, I'm Tapering

And I'm losing my mind. The taper worms have infested my brain!

It's Monday, a new week of training and I did go out on this sunny, slushy day and put in 10 easy miles. My legs felt tired. I don't know why they feel so tired. I ended up pushing through the wimp factor on Saturday and did 20 miles, but then we had a big snowstorm on Sunday and I totally wimped out of my other 20 mile run.

Completely and thoroughly wimped out. How bad was it?

I went over to Island Grill, a little bar and restaurant in our neighborhood, with Dennis, and sat on my butt and drank beer and ate...french fries. And did not run a step.

I did shovel snow twice, if that makes up for it. Maybe that makes up for one french fry, but as far as the other dozens of french fries in the basket, I don't know what to say. I'm sure I am carrying them around on my butt somewhere now. They were greasy and salty and I washed them down with beer and I stared at the Daytona 500 and some golf tournament in Arizona where they were freezing, and sat there like a barfly.

It's not my fault though, Dennis contributed to my delinquency, after just the day before, he convinced me that I was being a wimp and I should quit whining and get my butt out the door to run 20 miles. How can I trust this man? You'd think after 23 years I would know him, but the evil Dennis was lurking on Sunday, probably came out of the snowstorm like Sasquatch with size 14 running shoes.

I hate to admit it. At this point, tapering feels like a weakness, like I'm wimping out. But when I go back to my original plan for the year, I should be tapering. Things are a little off because of my involuntary change of plans, but it really shouldn't make all that much difference.

The plan was to run Delano Park as a race, and to run Cornbelt as another "training run" to go to Oklahoma City and run 24 hours for a PR. So, here I am a little over a week and half away from Delano and I'm finding myself wanting to keep training through it. The last two weeks my mileage has been lower than what I've been averaging over the past several months.

I'm planning on doing just 40 miles this week to get a really good rest week, and then I won't do too much other than very short easy runs before I go out to Alabama next week.

The thing about this mid-season taper is, I don't want it to throw my training off too much. I want to get away with just one recovery week after the race and then jump back into training, to do as much as I can before North Coast. I won't have much more training time before it. I feel unprepared for 24 hours at this point.

I have to remind myself, I'm not SUPPOSED to be prepared for 24 hours at this point. I'm training. North Coast is a TRAINING RUN. The race I'm peaking for is in October, not April.

Just reading what I've written so far, I think I'm doing that anxiety thing again, with my brain spinning in my head like a top.

How did I become such a head case? For so many years I have been calm and relaxed about going into races.

So tonight, to make myself feel better, I went out and got a new pair of shoes to wear at Delano Park, a pair of Brooks Adrenalines in the new neon green color. They look awesome. I saw the blue ones too, might have to get myself a pair of those one of these days. Maybe before North Coast.




The moonrise and sunset were amazing tonight. I didn't get a good picture of the moon, but it looked huge over the eastern plains as I was driving to Runners' Roost to get my shoes. I stopped east of Zeigler Road to take a picture, but the iPhone camera doesn't do justice to the moon at all. It was huge and yellow and dominated the sky.

The other problem with tapering is that you end up doing all kinds of strange, normal things while you wait for your race day to arrive. Like cleaning the bathroom, doing those long-procrastinated errands, and staring at the giant moon wishing you could go for a run, instead of actually doing it. It's just weird and it messes with your brain.

I'll need to find a way to exterminate the taper worm, once it's crossed the blood-brain barrier, the damage might be irreversible...