Concurrent with last entry’s theme of embracing this in-between season was trying to disconnect as much as possible last week, with everyone being off for Thanksgiving break and my in-laws visiting for two weeks. The opportunity for r&r really couldn’t have come at a better time, and I’m thankful for the time we all got to spend together.
Plunging headfirst back into the controlled chaos has been a little jolting this week, to be sure, evidenced by the fact that it’s 9:40pm, I just got the kids down, and I’m opening WordPress to begin writing this week’s entry. Eh. Next week’s entry will hopefully be more substantial.
I will quickly mention that I have come really close to making future training decisions within the past week, but then I remembered that I reeeeeeeeally want to abstain from anything of the sort during this period. Explore some options and get some questions clarified, sure, but do not — I repeat, do not! — hit the magic “pay” or “confirm” buttons! Avoid at all costs! The most I’ve done is re-up with Wolfpack, and that felt great. šŗ
At any rate, hopefully the beginning of December has been good to you, as was the end of November. November was the first month in over a year where I didn’t hit 200+ miles for the month, and I can’t tell you how great that feels. I don’t think anyone needs to “earn” time off, but damn, I worked hard for that and am happily reveling in it now.
I know this time of year can be really tough for many people, for loads of different reasons, so I hope that you are able to take care of yourself and “do you” as best you can this month. It looks different for everyone, of course, but we really can’t overstate the benefits conferred by physical activity, both at this time of year but in general, always. Even a 10 or 20 minute leisurely walk can be mood-shifting and attitude-altering.
Generally speaking, my relationship with the taper varies considerably (not to be confused with my relationship with tapirs, which remains positive. Sending love to my fellow herbivores, always).
Sometimes we read about runners or athletes having ātaper tantrumsā since theyāre dealing with the challenge of working out less than theyāre accustomed to, all in the interest of arriving on race day fresh, peaked, and ready to roll.
When youāre used to working out X times a week and suddenly you are working out X-Y minutes/hours/miles instead, it can definitely feel a little disorienting. What are you going to do with all your new-found time?!?!
For some people, this extra time that theyāre not spending running or training gives them plenty of opportunities to fret and begin to second-guess everything theyāve done for the past who-knows-how-many weeks and months, which obviously isnāt advantageous leading into a race.
At the other end of the spectrum, of course, is marching toward and entering Taperlandia almost triumphantly because sometimes just getting through training in one piece is cause for celebration — nevermind what actually transpires on race day.
Athletes may feel like theyāve been teetering on the brink, that theyāve been straddling the line of injury or overtraining, until suddenly they can pull back the curtain, relax a little, and step back in intensity and/or duration to catch their breath (figuratively, literally, maybe both).
For some, the taper canāt arrive soon enough, and they welcome it with very open arms (and very tired bodies).
Iāve been in both camps, as well as everywhere in between. For most of my marathons Iāve run, particularly before I had children, training was usually occurring within the confines of a lot of other stuff, particularly graduate school (x2), internships, full-time work, commuting, and the like. The weeks when everything was heavy felt particularly impossible, making me feel like I didnāt have a respite from anythingā¦ until suddenly, taper, voila, and the heavens parted and the angels sang and the renewal process began. It was glorious.
In the only other 50k Iāve ever done, it was much the same. No longer were my weekends full of back-to-back long runs; suddenly, sleep became more of a thing than it was before, as was time to do non-running-related pursuits. I guess I didnāt realize how much time, relatively speaking, I was spending on running until I began to intentionally run less.
More recently, time and experience (and life circumstances being what they are with being married, having two young kids in school, and that sort of thing) has taught me to embrace the taper and not sweat the details too much. I think it matters less what you havenāt done and more of what you have done, within reason. Time is a finite resource for all of us, and we do the best we can with the resources and time we have available (and, when needed, we adjust our goals accordingly relative to our training).
Sweating what we havenāt done is a waste of precious time and mental real estate.
Focus on what you have (or in this case, what youāve done), not on what you havenāt, ya know?
Itās the same refrain I echo to my kids on the regular.
In the event that I feel a bit more āspringierā than normal, I try to harness whatever nerves I have and redirect them to more fruitful endeavors, such as accomplishing the non-running stuff that has taken a back burner or, ideally, getting more sleep or rest than I usually can.
This comes with varying levels of success as I evaluate my priorities. In this regard, in the past month, Iām happy to say that Iāve been getting more sleep than usual (to the detriment of my morning daily ritual with the NYT). I can assure you, however, that my clean laundry is still scattered in piles throughout my house because I have āno timeā to put it away. Again: priorities.
After last weekās cutback 16 mile LR (ācutbackā = 16 miles, you know youāre in endurance training mode whenā¦), that I completely and utterly lollygagged because I felt tired AF, the weekendās running was pretty limited due to an all-weekend-long swim meet (which I knew was coming and for which I planned accordingly).
low-hanging clouds on S. Rim after Friday’s storm
I was able to get in an easy ~50 minutes on Saturday after the meet, but on Sunday, I couldnāt Life Tetris my schedule to make a comparably-meaningful run happen unless I:
a) woke up at 4am to run at 5am — which I tried to do, and failed — to be home by 6am to wake-up the kids and get them ready, or
b) ran through a rain deluge (that had been raging since 7am) at around 8pm at night.
I cut my losses and ran for an easy mile, like 10ā or so, around 8pm just to keep the streak alive and to play in the glorious and much-needed rain for a few. It was enough.
When I finished, I all but declared that taper, Iām looking forward to your embrace.
It harkens back to the this whole idea about āthe totalityā; I could sweat the ~4 miles that I didnāt run last week that put me just shy of my mileage goal for the week, or I could just take comfort in the fact that my extra sleep Sunday morning was probably more meaningful — and probably better for my fitness adaptations — than running an extra forty minutes that day (and especially after being at a meet all day, all weekend, and everything else that I had going on Sunday).Ā
The 50k is coming up here fast, so this week is a little mini-taper before a 35k on Saturday morning, the last long-LR before the big day. Iām going into the weekend’s race with a clean slate and rockinā attitude because thereās literally no basis of comparison here for me. Iāve never run a 35k race, and in fact, Iāve only ever done a couple other trail races before (and not at this specific distance and not at the location where I’ll be going). Iāve run 35k in marathon training runs and in marathons, of course, but never really as its own, stand-alone thing and most definitely not in a trail racing environment.
Itās actually pretty rad to be going into a race with no real expectations or hopes or goals beyond finishing.
Iām feeling pretty stoked and jazzed and am looking forward to a few more days of low-key running between now and then.
