Coping well with my taper

 

Oh no! I'm done with my race training and I have to rest now! That is so awful! Instead of running outside in 20° temperatures, I am forced to stay in my warm house and drink coffee.

It's hard to believe that anyone would view tapering that way. According to a survey that I saw on Runner's World, there are percentage of people who hate the taper's rest period. To quote someone from a recent runner's forum, "[It's] biochemical, like withdrawal from an addiction." 

Hey, I like running. I'd better like it because I do it almost every day. But the opportunity to have a couple of guilt-free rest days is a gift, not a burden.  I'm going into the city later today for a couple of meetings and I'll probably cover 3 or 4 miles by foot in the process. While I am taking a rest from running, I don't plan to stop moving. Some good relaxing walks will be the perfect penultimate tapering activity. Tomorrow I can truly rest. You can bet I'll enjoy that coffee.

Anniversary day run and 700th post

Today's run (street): 3.55 miles

Today is my anniversary so I took a vacation day and spent some great time with my wife. It's also the 700th post on this blog. I wanted to get a few extra miles in this morning because I skipped Tuesday's workout. With a little more time to run I had more opportunity to cover distance than I usually do on during the work week. This morning's run was very tough. It felt harder than an 8 miler in the July heat. I'm hoping that my experience had something to do with this cold that continues to plague me. I want to avoid the need to call this blog the Emerging Complainer so I'll just say that my legs felt like lead and my form felt unbalanced over the entire run.

I wore my Brooks GTS 10's because I wanted a little extra cushioning since everything that can hurt was hurting prior to hitting the road. It was a strange sensation when I ran. I felt that my stride action was numb and that my glutes on the right side (where I usually have an issue) felt extremely weak. I always vow to resume my core workouts when I experience these feelings but I haven't been good about doing that. I don't exactly why I'm having so many sluggish runs these days. You'd think the fact that I run most days would contribute more to continuous improvement. I know things will snap back into place once I get rid of this cold. Despite the difficulty of today's run I beat yesterday's pace handily so I know I can move along if I need to.  I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow for an activity because I am home on Friday and that will provide time for a longer workout. I'm hoping for less pain and more gain. I'll be happy with less pain (I couldn't resist one last complaint).