Now that I've completed my peak training week, last week, it's time to taper. This means lightening the training load to let me legs recover from the months of beastings I've subjected them to. It's also the period of greatest frustration and caution...
Last week, in 7 days I ran 110km in training mileage with only 2 days off. That's a chunk of time and effort. With three weeks left until challenge day at the end of that I'm now easing the training back dramatically for two key reasons.
to let my legs and minor injuries heal and recover
to avoid something breaking and going wrong
Let's be clear, Tapering doesn't mean a full stop. That's likely to make it hard for my body to get going again. For me, this is a step-by-step reduction in distance and frequency for two weeks and then the last five days of no running up to the event.
At the end of my 'peak week' was my birthday. That meant a few days of eating what I wanted and doing family stuff so it coincided nicely. I'm already itching to train again having taken 4 days off to recover from last week's endeavours and a few days of poor eating. I can feel the carbs adding water-retained weight again, and lack of movement so need to get my legs moving again and clean that diet back up through to the final few days before the event.
I also have to be smart and cautious. Training enough to keep the good work in my legs but also recovering in time for the event. I have to run but not so much that I risk a pre event injury simply because I push too fast because I'm feeling better than I have in my legs for weeks. 'Patience young Jedi' rings in my mind.
With a 110km training week (Sunday to Sunday) now behind me, I'll take this first Taper week to heal a little and run 5km on the Thursday (Today), followed by a 15km Saturday day and 12km Saturday night. I need to get a little nighttime trail running in, and doing it with a couple of weeks before the event allows me to recover/heal if I tweak anything en-route in the dark. Running in the dark is very different to daytime when on a trail, so it's important I connect to what that is likely to be like given I'll be running through the night on event day. It's cold, it's lonely and your senses are heightened as you take more care which makes it mentally tiring. The last time I trained at night, I had to fend off an angry Badger who I'd disturbed... it scared the shit out of me as it came out of nowhere! After this, next week will be a couple of 5k runs followed by an easy 15km next weekend. After that I'll do a small 3km run early in the final week then take 5 days of zero running leading up to the event. I will be stretching and performing rehab exercises throughout until the last week when it'll simply be some easy walking and light stretching to keep things moving.
For me, the next couple of weeks are simply about balance. Staying fresh enough and keeping things moving, but not letting good work unravel either through a halt to training or eating garbage. I know It'll get frustrating going from high activity to much less, but I'm confident I have the discipline to work the plan I have given what I've gone through so far.
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