Coffee Milk Week 15: X Gonna Give to Ya

First we gonna rock, then we gonna roll, then we let it....well, taper.  This was the first week of taper and it's lived up to its terrible hype.  For everyone out there that enjoys the taper, my hats off to you.  I can excel at the whole first 14 weeks of a plan only to fall to complete pieces in the last two.

Nonetheless, if we wanna go fast, we taper.  This weeks installment of terrible workouts included a long run of ten miles, a tempo 6 miler with 4 miles at sub 8 pace, and a speed work "strength" session of 4 x 1.5 mile repeats, which is the only workout I deviated in and turned into a 6 miler at 7:40 pace.

The tempo workout (1 mile warm up, 4 miles at avg 7:45 pace and a 1 mile cool down), felt terrible.  My lungs hurt, my legs were stiff, and I basically had no clue how I could maintain the pace for any  length of time.

The long run, which I wisely opted to do alone and on the morning after about 2 hours sleep, felt equally terrible at an 8:30 pace.  Suffice to say the thought of holding a faster pace than this for 26.2 miles feels HIGHLY unreasonable.

My recovery runs, held at close to a 9 minute mile, felt easy leg wise and terrible breathing wise.

Basically, I'm dying.  I have no energy, no legs, and no discernible shot at PRing this marathon, let alone even thinking magical Boston dreams.

Good job taper, you're doing it right!  After every run, I would get home and get asked the same question - "How did your run go?".  Same answer.  TERRIBLE.  Same response.  THAT'S AWESOME!

Runners.  Thank god we understand each other.

The only saving grace in terms of run-spo came, ironically, from work.  I was asked to represent my agency at a Lifespan luncheon where the keynote was Kathrine Switzer, who, if you are a non runner, is an iconic figure in the female running community - in 1967, she became the first woman to ever complete registered in a marathon - ironically, at Boston.

Her story and speech were incredible, and despite the "taper blues", made me want to jump in my car, drive to Rhode Island, and run 26.2 immediately.  While she never set out to "break barriers", her feisty spirit of hitting adversary head on had me sitting in the audience, tears streaming down my face.  She spoke of being issued challenges, of being given goals in the guise of people thinking you cannot do something and proving them wrong, which sent shivers down my spine.

She challenged us to live our lives by participating, not by spectating.

And she defined destiny as finishing the job.  Not about being given magical powers, but by staying the course every day and making it happen.


100% phenomenal. And during a training week where the wheels totally came off, exactly what I needed.

Week 15 Mileage:

Running: 44.1

Biking: 25

Swimming: 7500 yards

To cap off the week, the annual Barkley marathons began in Frozen Head on Saturday morning at 9:23am.  If you ever wanted to feel pathetic about your athletic aspirations, google it.  If you ever wanted evidence that I am in fact crazy, know that, along with my PCT hiking fool cousin Noah, I intend to enter it one day.

Because why not.  No limits.

But for the next 6 days, my athletic limits lay in 3-6 mile easy runs, race day strategizing, and obsessive weather checking.

Reminds me of the Lake Placid thread with likely asteroids and a high of 212 degrees.  Man, that was epic :-P