The Week Before the Week Before - Taper Tantrums!

It snowed this week and once again, the mountains are white.  I can’t believe summer is over.  My trails up on the TRT are covered with a few inches of snow and although it will warm up next week, there’s a good chance that I won’t see those trails again until next year.  It might snow again, they're talking La Nina and a repeat of last year.

Mt Rose Ski Area - white again!

Seven days until the race.  Last week I did only 43 miles at altitudes mostly above 7000 feet with over 8000 feet of climbing.  By Sunday night after a 12 mile run on the TRT, I was ready for a rest day on Monday.

On Monday, I carefully plotted out my week thinking that I would run at least 32 miles which would be a 25% cut off my previous week’s mileage.  Tuesday morning came and 32 miles for the week ahead seemed daunting so close to race week.  No worries, I thought, it’s a lot less than last week and 32 miles is nothing!  I asked Dave to drop me off at the Thomas Creek Trailhead and started the Dry Pond loop with the plan to run back to the house.  Only 11 miles.

It was a typical run on one of my favorite trail routes, but I arrived home with the realization that I wasn’t looking forward to another week of long miles.  I was still tired after my rest day.  I seriously needed to back off my plan and rest much, much more.  For the first time in a while, I didn’t want to run.

In the mean time, I was a bit anxious about a sold out audience for a free introductory talk about ChiRunning at the Reno REI, scheduled for Wednesday.  I had anticipated the event for two months and was thrilled to bag what I considered, a highly coveted gig.  It would be the biggest audience I’d ever delivered a talk to about ChiRunning.  I listened to Danny on his audio tapes, talked with my friend and mentor, Mary, one of a very few people in the world designated as a Master Instructor, and practiced the whole talk at least once a day. 

The talk went fabulously well.  The group of 40 people was engaged and fully participated!  People of all ages and running abilities.  I had a blast!  The REI guy was happy and it seemed like the group thought it was worth their time to come out on a cold fall evening.

And I didn’t run that day.  This would be the second day this week that I took off.  I hadn’t taken two days off in a week in months.  Interesting.  When I trained for the Ironman 30 years ago, I loved taking two days off a week.  I needed it to continue with the grueling hours of cycling, swimming and running every day.  What was different now?  I was spending much more time on my feet, why wouldn't I take two days off?  I also realized that my usual strategy of hard days followed by easy days and hard weeks followed by easy weeks had gotten very blurred over the last 6 weeks.  I clearly was taking fewer easy days, doing back to back long distance days and definitely not alternating easy weeks with hard ones.  They have all been hard.

Talking with Mary about my perceived need for rest due to a feeling of deep fatigue left me with the decision not to run again on Thursday, yesterday.  It’s good to have people who can see my circumstances and validate where I’m at.  Mary helped me to see that the miles are “in the bank” and if I didn’t run again between now and the race, I’d be fine.  So Thursday was a third rest day.  And I knew I needed it.  I was realizing that I really need to rest more.

Today is Friday and my mind yelled that I better run, that this really wasn’t a good idea to rest this much.  So, after consulting with my body during a tentative session of body looseners, I decided to run.

So I did 8 miles for a grand total of about 19 for this week in two runs.  I ran a route that has 1100 feet of climb, 4 miles up and 4 miles down.  I started slow and realized I hadn't eaten for about 4 hours and my stomach was growling.  Not good planning.  Hhmm have to keep this one short. 

Trail on the way up towards the foothills, Mt Rose ski area in the background

And I ran it fast, well as fast as before I started doing these insane miles, anyway.  And it felt good.  My legs felt good, but my mind was anxious.  For the first time, I could make the distinction.  I was able to be outside of myself observing the body-mind dance, truly body sensing the truth of my performance and not some interpretation dominated by my thoughts.  Clarity about the truth of the state of my body transformed my experience of the run from my interpretation to what was real.  I could manage my thoughts because I was clear about the state of my body, which was quite happy, actually.  It loves to run.  My mind was what needed to be trained and managed.   I was just anxious, nervous about my readiness to run 50 miles.  I acknowledged it, then enjoyed the run. 

I was having a taper tantrum and it had nothing to do with my body and everything to do with my head!  

It is good to rest tho.  My body is quite happy to do that and I know now that it will run when I ask it to.   But, now I know I need to rest more this week than run.  My mind is the boogey man and I just need to tell it to take a time out when it has a taper tantrum rather than buy into it.  Hmm, daily meditation may be necessary to calm the tantrums:  “I have the ability to accomplish any task I set my mind to with ease and comfort,” a meditation from Wayne Dyer’s book, “Excuses Begone.”

I don’t know if I’ll run tomorrow or not.  I may rest again and then do a short, less than one hour run on Sunday and another on Monday.  Or not.  I may do very little from Tuesday through Friday next week.

I'll just listen to my body and let my mind chatter on, silly thing.