Taper town is not my favorite place to be.
There is something I love about the grind of racking up the miles during marathon training – a satisfaction in looking at my Garmin and seeing how many miles I’ve run during the week.
But then you reach taper town and the number drops. You question everything you’ve done in the last 15 weeks, and if it was enough. Some part of your body starts to feel funny, and you question if you’re injured. These thoughts are known as “The Taper Crazies,” and they welcome you to the end of marathon training.
I had a slow start to the week. I got my covid booster and my flu shot on Sunday after the half marathon, and I spent most of the day Monday just trying to stay awake. I felt ok, other than my body completely wanting to be asleep. When I got home from work, I immediately got into bed and took a fat nap, that I only got up from to eat dinner, after which I basically went right to bed again.
Because of this extreme fatigue, I opted to not set an early alarm Tuesday morning and planned to get my weekday runs in on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week. By Tuesday night I was pretty much feeling normal again and set up to run on my treadmill Wednesday morning – and then my husband discovered that our hot water wasn’t working.
So, I pivoted Wednesday morning, and when I got up I sent my parents a message to let them know I was going to run by their house, and then commandeer their shower after. My mom still hasn’t returned to a normal sleep schedule after Hawaii, and my dad is still having post-covid congestion issues, so they haven’t been able to join me for morning runs lately. Dad was already up when I got to his house, and I wished him a happy birthday before heading out to run.
I had three miles planned for that morning, and I was glad it was only three. It was a sneaky humid morning, where it is not hot, but it wants to rain so you can feel the humidity bearing down. Honestly, I just tried to mentally check out as much as was possible for this run. It was for sure the 1/3 of the time when you don’t feel great for me… I am sure that it did not help that I stuffed my face with fondue the night before.
I was dripping with sweat by the time the run was over, and glad to be done and get on with my day. Runs like this are NOT welcome in taper town, as they make me question how I am going to run a marathon in less than two weeks, when sometimes three miles can suck.
Thankfully, the remaining two weekday runs I had planned made me feel a little better. We had our hot water back by Wednesday night, so I setup to run on my treadmill Thursday morning. Getting outside to run in the dark has been a mental struggle for me lately – I don’t mind getting up early, I just feel really anxious on the days that I am out there alone – I feel like it’s a struggle between wanting to be completely lit up so every car that goes by sees me coming from a mile away vs. wanting to be so invisible that no one notices me going by. I think this is, as they say, the fear of “Running while Female.”
Despite this, when I got up Thursday morning the perfect fall temps lured me outside, and I felt good while running. I was able to settle into a groove, and was a little sad that I didn’t have time to keep going after I hit 4 miles. I was once again covered in sweat upon finishing, and had to wait a minute before showering to avoid sweating through the shower. So my cats got an extra minute of sweaty attention, which they weirdly love.
I wish I could say that I got to yoga or the gym during the week, but neither happened. We are in the midst of moving my brother into the house, re-decorating our living room, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary, and I have been working a little extra, so there was just no time during the week. I was basically getting into bed exhausted just from life each night, glad that I had run in the morning and not tried to squeeze it in later.
Up last was a 6 mile run on Friday morning. I was excited, because I got a new spotlight attachment for my Nox Gear light up vest, that clipped right into the front buckle, which meant I didn’t need my glove lights, which have been annoying me. The new light worked like a charm, and made it so I could see despite the dark morning. I have been working my way through the haunted mansions series on podcast the ride (they release a new episode each year at Halloween, 2022 being year 5), and the newest episode had dropped that morning, so I listened about the hatbox ghost as I got in my miles. It was a nice, chilly morning, and while my hands were cold for the first mile, I was fine once I got further into the run.
My headphones warned me they were going to die around mile 2, so I stopped by the house and quickly swapped them out for another pair and then continued on the way. Den waved as he drove by me when he left for work. It was the good run that I needed that week, to feel better about the rapidly approaching race day.
My final run of the week was an 8 miler, that I saved for Sunday. I wanted a practice go at eating everything I would on race morning, so I planned to start running at 11:30, around the time Mike and I would start the marathon a week later.
But my ambitious plan to practice marathon morning fueling and timing did not happen. Instead, when I work up I started working on finishing up the paint job we were giving my living room, and got too involved with house maintenance after that. My uncle came over to patch the ceiling for us after the plumbing issues earlier this week, we assembled some new furniture, cleaned up the aftermath of the ceiling patch, and suddenly it was 7 pm. Welp.
But there was no way I was bailing on this run. So as the sun was setting I pulled on my light-up vest, and Dennis joined me on bike as we headed for some neighborhood loops. I was tired from a busy day and looking forward to just being done with this run and being able to sit down for a bit before the weekend was over, but it was a good run. I found a groove, Dennis and I pointed out Halloween decorations that we liked to each other, and after a bunch of loops by watch buzzed, showing the 8 mile mark.
16 weeks, done and dusted. Up next, race week!