April 25, 2010

Time to Taper

One week to go until my first 100km - Elk Beaver near Victoria on Vancouver Island, so finally it's time to taper. Like for most runners, I have a bit of a love/ hate relationship with tapering. On one way it feels good to take it easier, not having to squeeze in runs around everything else going on in life and actually having time to do other things - catching up with friends, watching movies and just catching up on life in general. To be fair I am usually a little obsessive about my training so will cut out a tonne ofther things in life before I cut back on my running so It's nice to have time to breathe and chill a little. But on the otherhand it seems illogical having spent so much time training to now just cut back - little niggling worries start getting into my head that I am taking it too easy and that race day is yet to come so I should still be training! After spending months running and hitting the gym I start to feel uneasy by cutting things back. But at the end of the day I know I could definitely over do it this week but it would probably be hard to under do training this week - so less is better and will hopefully bring me to the start line refreshed and with a spring in my step! Of course I'm resisting filling my time when I would normally be running with other activities - I've thought of going for a swim or a bike ride but that would probably re-awaken muscles that have not be used in a long time and do more harm than good! I got a good cruisey downhill ski in yesterday and will run later today and also do yoga - but those are things I do all the time. I'm also trying to catch up on sleep (something I usually don't get enough of!), eating good and looking forward to some shorter, easy pace runs this week. I'll be heading to Vancouver on Thursday and so looking foward to catching up with friends and running with my Pacific Road Runners family that evening for the first time since September - yay! Lots of club runners will be racing at Vancouver marathon on the day after I race Elk Beaver so I'm confident they won't push the pace to much on Thursday and that they will be holding back on the beers too! Now time to rest....

5 comments:

  1. You sure about the holding back on the beers bit :)

    Enjoy your taper and see you on Thursday, everyone is looking forward to it.

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  2. Enjoy your taper week. As you know my phylosophy is that you should not taper too too much, but then again I have never run 100K! Sounds like you have it figure out though. See you Thursday!

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  3. Hey David - I have will power and although you guys may not hold back on the beers I certainly am! (are you racing either the half or full at VIM?). Susan - oh, I'm still running a bit so not going crazy on the taper but to be honest think the legs need a rest! See you both Thursday :)

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  4. Good luck Ellie, look forward to reading the race report. I have got back on the wagon and signed up for the Gold Coast Marathon in July. Has been more road than trails lately, which is not really my thing, but quite keen to smash my PB. A bit more speed and tempo sessions will hopefully help.

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  5. Glad you decided to taper and do the easy thurs prr run. You can now recover and celebrate your amazing run.
    Sukhi.

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