The Taper Crazies!

11/03/2015 by She's Going the Distance 20 Comments

Monday: 6m interval (2m warm up 9:15/pace, 2 x 1m @ 6:27/pace 4:00 recovery + 1.5m cool down)

Finally! I feel like i’ve been talking about the Indianapolis Monumental 1/2 for such a long time! This might be the first time I’m heading into a half feeling excited to see what can happen!

Usually I go into a taper feeling like my training sucked, I coulda/shoulda/woulda done more, but even as I reviewed every detail of my training log i’m taking the positive notes & keeping those for motivation. I’m not gonna get upset if every speedwork session wasn’t perfect, or on every long run i didn’t make incredible improvements. I’m taking the big, important facts & those will be where I draw motivation to push and do my best this Saturday.

Also, I needed a long sleeved shirt for the race and I loved this new Champion long sleeved top I wore for the last easy 8 miler this past weekend.

Important Facts That I Will Be Reminding Myself All Week As the Taper Crazies* Set In!

7 weeks ago I did the Parks Half Marathon in 1:40:02. Un-tapered legs, 5 weeks into training, this was a great time for me to post at the beginning of a training plan.
I finished training healthy, happy & feeling good!! I’m not burnt out and I’ve loved running this fall.
I had an extra week of training!
I’ve been sleeping well, eating well & drinking a ton of water every day.
I can PR on Saturday. I will not restrict my brain with a pace/time goal. I want to run a race to the best of my ability and do better than I have before. #bebrave

*Taper Crazies- The week or two before a race where you think you’re getting sick or injured, you suck at life, you’re not good enough, your spouse/family or co-workers just don’t understand!, nothing is going your way, you review your training log only to find out you didn’t do enough, your final runs all feel like crap–there’s no way you’ll hit your race goal, the barista gave you regular milk when you asked for coconut milk! NOOOOOO!!!!!

Basically, it’s a stressful time where the runner needs to trust the training, relax and get a race day gear & game plan together.

I’m doing what I can to stay busy at work and relax in the evenings. We went to dinner with friends on Halloween so the only dressing up I did was at work. We’re all super goofy & love an excuse not to wear out normal Gold’s Gym shirts. I didn’t have anything laying around the house other than my Hunger Games shirt, so I went as Katniss, like last year. But i figured it’s more relevant since the last movie is coming out this month! I can’t tell you how excited i am for Hunger Games, but also..Star Wars. <—I literally cried watching the trailer. —> See! Keeping my mind off the race 😉