It could be said that I am in the minority, when it comes to both training and tapering, with a large bunch of the runners that I know. They regularly run one or more marathons a week, in the race to attain 100 marathons or more. I am taking things a little more calmly than that this year, and am mostly paying attention to my TrainAsONE plan….there are a lot less “off plan” marathons sneaking in this year!
I really want to enjoy my running and it’s important for me to balance life, work, running and supporting the Boyf with his race plans for the year too. So I have eased back a bit and am enjoying the way my plan keeps the balance between distance and speed work. My running distance has been less over the last two months than the equivalent time last year. Not by much, but it’s enough that a runner could get freaked out by it and start to panic that they were under training.
Having run a number of sessions with the Boyf though, he has confirmed I am getting stronger and faster (backed up by the recent increase in my training pace after the TrainAsONE assessments I did). This is a good confidence booster, as I was feeling strong in my December race too. I’m hoping that in my race this weekend I’ll be able to get a good leg stretch and test out my Tailwind strategy for the rest of the year’s races. I have my fingers crossed for a light breeze and cool temperatures to allow me to keep a decent pace and not overheat (for a change).
It’s going to be a tricky race to pace as the laps are about 10km in length and whilst we have 8 hours alllcated for running, you need to be out on the last lap 6.5 hours after the start. If all goes to plan I’ll be aiming to complete an ultra-marathon….it sounds a lot for a first race back, but when you have longer races coming up you just have to dive in! The good thing is that I know huge distances in training aren’t essential to complete a marathon…my trust in TrainAsONE has paid off more than once and I know that as long as I get my head in the right place and conditions allow, I’ll be able to put in a strong performance. With my longest run in the last two months coming in at around 16km (and that was because I combined 2 sessions), I know that I am not at a disadvantage compared to those banging out 18 – 22 mile long runs because I get to rest, recover and work on my speed (the best way to improve overall performance).
So what am I going to do to beat taper-mania? Well I might spend some time doing some yoga (I have been a bit slack recently), and I will definitely be keeping up with my Butt Builder Challenge as this is helping my power on runs too.
Do you have any tricks for not going stir-crazy when you can’t train?