Tampering with Tapering

I love and loathe final week tapering. I embrace not running (much) for days, eating well, and knowing that I'm in relatively enviable shape. Yet, I despise not running (much) for days, over-indulging, and feeling like I'm losing my conditioning virtually overnight.

The week before my February marathon, I broke most tapering rules. Tapering Rule Number 1: Make sure you have diligently and dutifully followed your Hal Higdon 18 week intermediate marathon training schedule. This winter, I hadn't trained to run a marathon period, and my sole long run was 14.2 miles six days before the event (if you're paying attention you'll notice that there are two tapering violations embedded here).

Tapering Rule Number 2: The final week should be restful, allowing your muscles to heal from any minor training injuries and prepare for the big event. Sigh. I play women's hockey (albeit not very well) and had a 10:45 p.m. game three nights pre-race. Hockey is a sprint sport. The hardest part about a sprint endeavor ending around midnight on a work night, is that it's impossible to fall asleep before 3:00 a.m. despite my swishing down 1500 mg of IBprofen and some over-the-counter sleeping pills with a healthy glass or two of Malbec.

Tapering Rule Number 3: If you haven't put in the miles, are overly tired or ill, a runner should seriously consider not participating in the event. At least I had made a lame effort with this rule. Initially I let common sense govern and had registered for the 25k option. However, in my sleep deprived state two days before the run I received the final pre-event e-mail, and it clarified that only marathon finishers merited a race t-shirt. Well, what's with that?

My tapering for the 50k classic ski race in the Canadian Yukon in March was just as deplorable except that I had three late hockey games in the preceding week. Plus, I got stuck playing center (sprint sport squared), and stuck with a blotchy, purplish bruise on my lower right cheek. The positive side of all that pre-race, hyperkinetic insomnia is that I weighed in under 130 for the first time in several years. Sadly, dramatic weight loss during the final week preceding an endurance event is, yes you guessed it, another tapering violation.

What's ahead? I have a 55k trail race this weekend, and I know this aging body with experience a new level of agony. So, to prepare last week I ran 24 miles including a 1700 foot climb to the local ski area (yes - tapering violation galore!). But, all of these violations after years of towing the marathon training line, is sort of freeing. Actually, it's damned freeing! It's like showing up at the office buck naked...or buck naked but for a pair of muddy Gel Kayanos.

Be Free and Run Your Trails with Abandon,
AJ