Taper Time

(with Jay and Aaron, my partners in crime at Richmond, shortly after our 19 mile run and an amazing breakfast at Le Peep!)

The completion of this morning's long run (19 miles with the last 3 at MP) signalled the start of my taper for Richmond with 2 weeks left till the big day. I find the taper a weird phase. On the one hand it's something to look forward to, a celebration of the bulk of your hard training coming to an end, recognition that you've done your work and now it's time to relax and prepare for the race. On the other within days you typically start feeling sluggish and guilty for not running so much! For that reason a couple of workouts will be thrown into the mix just to keep the fitness levels up and remind the legs and lungs of the faster paces. For me, a 60 minute tempo on Wednesday and a 14 mile run later in the week with a couple of miles at MP. Then in the days leading up to the race I will do a workout on the Tuesday with some race pace and faster miles in the middle.

Significant runs since the 12 mile tempo were 21 on the Sunday on the roads with the last 5 in the low 6s, a cut down 5 mile tempo on the track (28:20) which was harder work than it should have been due to the freak humidity we had for a couple of days and then yesterday's 19 with the last three in 5:50,5:44,5:51.

16 weeks ago I started out on my training plan for Richmond. Since then I have run 66,60,82,56,70,70,56,73,80,67,85,61,82,84,70 and 83 miles, hit every planned long run and workout and set a new 15k PR. Now it's time to consolidate all that hard work and make sure I do things right for the next couple of weeks and be ready to roll at Richmond.

Happy Halloween!!