Taper time

I just finished the longest week of training on Sunday and have now started the first week of my 3 week taper with a full rest from running yesterday!

Last week felt pretty hard by Friday, my legs were seriously knackered all day Friday and Saturday morning when I got up. But then I went for a 75km bike ride morning with Michael, followed by a 7km run which seemed to loosen the legs up quite a bit.

Spent the rest of the day driving down to Kiama and partying it up at Jen and Daniel's wedding and I think all those moves on the dance floor did me good because by Sunday the legs felt great again. Got home about 2pm, grabbed lunch and a nap, then set off for the long run about 4.45pm.

A couple of things about this run:

a) my legs felt sensational, a complete turnaround from Friday when I could barely walk! I felt like I was just floating along at a decent rate, which I was flabbergasted by at the end of a 120km week.

b) something was going on with my Polar foot pod because I ran the exact same course as last Sunday arvo, but whereas last Sunday it measured it at 35km, this week it clocked it at 40km! The time taken was fairly similar, I was about 8 - 10 minutes faster this week, but then again I felt like I was going faster too, so that’s about right. Maybe my foot cadence was faster this week which would equal a shorter stride (so more leg strokes for the same distance) which might have thrown it off? Ah well, either way I’m sure I didn’t run 40km!

c) Mentally I felt a lot stronger the whole way round, very focussed. Although there’s an easy explanation for that because I decided to try running with nutrition this week.

All my long runs so far have been without any carbs at all during the run, mainly water most of the way round and about 200 or 300ml of electrolyte drink near the end, to get my body used to sparing muscle glycogen and burning fat instead. However I thought I needed some practice in ingesting more fluid on the run, trying out the sports drink which will be at the aid stations in the marathon, and also the feeling of taking gels on the run.

So I drank at least double what I normally do on long runs, had about half a litre of the High 5 Energy Source drink they’re providing at the marathon (which contains carbs as well as electrolytes) and I also took three shots of gel spaced by 45 mins each. Thankfully I experience no GI distress and I felt like I was able to maintain concentration and physical effort throughout the run a lot better, so I'd say it was a successful experiment all round!

This week the plan is to reduce mileage by 30% (take 40km off) and do a 10km race on the weekend (Sydney Striders run at Homebush). Then reduce by another 30% next week and the week after. Go the taper!