Taper Tantrums

You have executed the perfect training plan… Now what ?

After diving into some heavy mileage early this year in pursuit of a personal challenge goal spawn by my son’s fundraising efforts, spring arrived with a mild injury but an otherwise solid base. I sat down and culled the many training programs devised by coaches over the years and built my own training schedule. Then I got to work running.

To be frank, the plan was great. I had some intense and fast intervals to build speed. Some tempo runs for volume and pace and the long Sunday run for time on feet on long slow distance. I progressed well.

I realized I was missing some hill work to build strength and so I pivoted. Added some of the tempo and interval sessions to a a mountain park here in the city and voila… my strength component materialized.

As the weeks passed, I got faster. I found myself adjusting my interval workouts faster, my long slow run were too slow and I soon realized my race goal pace was going to be easy and I could stretch my goal. In short, I planned and executed my training schedule and workouts flawlessly.

Today we are now three weeks from the 2019 NYC Marathon. My plan says one my hard week of running and a 37km run on Sunday. However I find myself feeling an ab strain and wondering if an extra taper would do more benefit than the conditioning.

You know what I’m feeling…. the temper tantrum. That moment we have trained well, know we need to dial back the training to recover and have muscles fully primed for race day. But human emotions kick in and we struggle to hold the line.

Trust the plan. Trust the training. The oft heard mantra that is equal parts true and annoying.

This year I will do just that, with one exception. My abdomen strain will benefit from less exertion. My cardio capacity will not be enhanced by a 37km run 2 weeks from race day, therefor I’m going to dial it back. Do a 20 or 22 and enjoy the extra recovery.

Being able to apply logic and not let obsession over rule common sense is another critical component of running that often gets lost in the noise.

Lace them tight and keep on running.