Taper

So starts the tapering. Taper tantrums, an apparently legitimate mental and physical freak out concerning carb cravings, the impulse to cram in extra work, recovery accompanied with heavy legs, phantom pains, panic attacks, a sinking feeling, and weight gain. It's Christmas for the pessimist! I'm eager to learn as much about the taper as I can. It seems like a percentage of it is personal opinion/favor, the other percentages spread between science, statistics, experience, race type, etc. I'm kind of loosely applying a general set of rules, hoping that in the end I will only have helped myself. If I look back across my training, I feel like there are these blips like "activity days" where I exerted a little more effort than usual, kind of like a day with a date, rather than this strenuous training plan with 2xworkouts a week, long runs, timed efforts, etc (a marriage). I literally feel like I haven't put much work in, which maybe relates to that hardship-memory-of-a-goldfish thing, or maybe it's just the taper tantrums. Yesterday I did my "last" hard workout (2x6-mile @ MP). I slept in, laid in bed with coffee, toast & the internet. The sun was brilliant; I brought out the shorts for a spring first. In my head I had an excellent backcountry course I could do the repeats on...I jaunted to a starting point after peeing in someone's ditch & on my shoe. You know when a child is made to try a new food, and they hardly give it a chance; the food sits in the curve of their tongue & their face repels & they say something like, "Idon'tlikeit?" That's how I've been feeling when it comes time to do speedwork. I just don't feel like going fast. I started uncomfortably, but found rhythm. I also found big gusts of wind & hills of all variety (short, steep, long, gradual). I'm not sure where in my head I thought I had found a great course to test my fitness on; for more reasons than just the workout, it was a challenge. I kept the mantra, "This is also a test of your mental strength boo." That's how I talk to myself.

I could visualize parts of the course that would offer relief & I thought ahead to those places. The first 6 were 6:18's, in the middle of my extreme A and more realistic B-goals. I took 10 minutes of easy jogging to smell the cut grass, stretch my calves, think about crap like how I want a chicken. Started my second & final 6-mile set, which would offer at least 3 miles of downhill. Despite the offering, I didn't feel entirely equipped to use the downs, and my mantra changed to a competitive, "6:18's or faster - that will make you feel good." I put away some 5:55's, thinking how awesome it would be to maintain that pace for a marathon. I ended the workout on the track, which made me feel like a cheater, but I told myself I deserved it after all the hills, finishing with a 6:12 avg. Ran a very slow steep uphill climb cool down back home.

Usually I will fill the day, but I tried to keep it all in check & just be ok with kicking my feet up, watching tv, snacking, reading. I passed out hard, woke up with a headache & felt stiff. Lolled around until Mads J came home & then somehow found the energy (and likely, stupidity) to do a little sunset 3-miler with her. It felt really good to get the acid out of my legs, so hopefully I didn't give in to the taper tantrums impulse to cram too ironically. Maddie said, "When Conor asked about my day, I told him I had work, did yoga, came home to make dinner with you, and that we were planning on wine & a movie. He said it sounded like we were dating." And I realized, wow, we totally are. I'm dating a live-in woman. After our sunset run, Mads & I went grocery shopping together like the lesbians we are, picked up a bottle of wine, ate a myriad of eclectic lazy-foods & watched Somethings Gotta Give, my no. 1 favorite old person's love story. I got a call from my Boulder mum, relaying some news that made me feel lonesome for her even more than I do. Thankfully I had my girlfriend, Big, and Carrie to seduce sleep.

My taper tantrums consist of daydreams of burgers, eating a pint of haagen dazs coffee ice cream & feeling pregnant, rolling around on the floor, loving when a tennis ball touches my underbutt, being grumpy, going to bed with dirty ankles, that kind of thing.