Respect the Taper

Yes, respect the taper.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term "taper", here is a quick definition: 2-3 weeks prior to a race, it is a decrease in intensity, decrease in distance, decrease in everything (except rest...increase that).  Right before the race, when your mind is freaking out and telling you to push your hardest and run your farthest, DON'T DO IT.

I totally understand the purpose of the taper.  For the past several months, I've been increasing mileage, increasing speed, and increasing strength.  I've been pushing my body to its limits and then pushing it farther.  My muscles are torn, tired, and vulnerable.  And now they need to rest.  They need to repair and strengthen themselves so that when I absolutely and totally push them to their limit in about a week and a half, they will be ready for it.  My legs are happy right now.  They are saying thanks for the rest.  Unfortunately for them, they have no idea what's coming.

So yes, the taper is essential, important, and should be respected at all costs.  But mentally, I think the taper is sometimes the hardest part of training.  As I said before, for the past several months, I've been pushing myself farther and faster...so now, right before the race, when I want to do everything I can to keep preparing, I'm supposed to hold back, go slow, shorten my runs.  My mind doesn't grasp that too easily.  Today I went for a run, aiming to go slow and steady for 50 mins, but my legs felt great.  And my mind didn't want them to go slow and steady.  My mind wanted them to push harder, like I've been telling myself to do for so long now.  But instead I have to think backwards--slow down, relax, breathe.  Here is a picture of my pacing graph from the Nike+ website:

I'm in the "blue" level on the Nike+ website, having logged a total of 704.72
miles since I got my watch in September.  That's a lot of miles, I think.  

See the argument I had with myself on this run?  See the ups and downs of winning voices in my head?  Speed up, no slow down, no too slow, wait go slower.  Running is such a mental battle.  The physical part is only about 10% of what it takes to make it through.  Maybe less.

Luckily during this taper, I've been incredibly busy and unable to think too much about tapering.  We're encroaching on the near end of the school year and suddenly I find myself drowning in the intricacies of teaching.  Teaching often pulls you in a thousand different directions all at once, but this week has been especially overwhelming.  It's like trying to solve a puzzle, but the pieces don't fit together.  And there's a few extra pieces.  But someone told you that you can put the puzzle together, that it will all fit.  So you keep trying.  And trying.  Until you realized you're facing an insurmountable task.  But even then, you don't want to give up.  Right now I have all these pieces of things that I want to fit in my brain.  But suddenly it feels like my brain is at capacity.  I'd make a list, because lists are great, but I don't know where to start or what to even call it (I simply can't have a list without a title).  "Things to think about," "Impossible problems to be solved," and "These things are important" are all possible but not necessarily all-encompassing titles.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not complaining about this.  I love my job.  I love feeling like what I'm doing matters.  If I fit only 2 pieces of that puzzle together and the rest fall away, I've still done something.  And something is always better than nothing.  I'm thankful that I feel involved, overwhelmed, and consumed by my job (when I'm at my job).  Most of the things that would land themselves on this theoretical list are pretty amazing.  For instance, here are things I have to remember for tomorrow:

1)  Plan my reading lesson:  Choose a great book, teach children to love and think deeply about that book.  Encourage them to do the same with their own book.

2)  Count coins for our Change for Nepal fundraiser:  My brother is currently saving the world in a small village in Nepal by helping to build a school and an orphanage.  I decided to help him raise money for school supplies by holding a coin drive at my school.  So far we've raised $992 in four days.  All of it in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  Which have to be counted by hand.  Tomorrow is the last day and I hope that we will have to spend a very long time counting more coins.

3)  Give a math test: Ok, this is not so fun.  But hopefully it will serve as evidence of all the awesome skills I've taught my kids in the past few weeks.

4)  Prep and host our "First Grade Coffeehouse Poetry Publishing Celebration":  This involves making lots of iced tea, setting up the classroom to look like a coffeehouse so that the kids can have a poetry reading and share their awesome poems with their parents.  There will be smiles, excitement, snacks, streamers, and a lot of stress for me.  But it's stress I'll take.  It's stress I've brought upon myself because if you could see how proud these kids are of their poetry, you'd do it too.

And those are just the big things.  There are other things like grading papers, sharpening pencils, solving the social dilemmas of 7 year olds, completing reading assessments, trying to remember if I have any meetings, and eating that are kind of important too.  The list is endless.  

And so, with this unnamed "list" of things in my brain for the past few weeks, tapering has been the last thing on my mind.  This has resulted in one of the easiest tapers I've ever had.  But there's still a week and half left.  I guess I shouldn't speak too soon.  Regardless here's one more list to close us out called "How I Plan to Respect the Taper, If All Goes According to Plan":

1)  Slow down:  As much as I love seeing the number 8 at the beginning of my pace, a 9:15 pace on a run is OK right now.  In fact, it's good.

2)  Drink water: This is one of the things that has slipped off the unnamed list of things at school.  Hydration is key.  Next week I will do better.

3)  Don't drink alcohol: I like to take a week off from alcohol before a big race.  I will have my last drink Sunday afternoon at a fellow runner's birthday party.  Then it will be more of item #2.

4)  Sleep: I will try to go to bed early all next week, because come next Saturday night, I know I will most definitely not be sleeping, especially with a close to 3 AM wake up call.

5) Think about the race: In trying to check so many things off so many lists, I haven't been thinking much about my mental plan for this race.  I need to look at the map, the elevations, and the mile markers and mentally prepare for this thing.

6) Stop thinking I suck at running right now: I've had an amazing training season.  I felt great, ran strong, and am faster than I've ever been.  In the taper, I forget that.

7) Enjoy some Lucy love: Because the Lucy face makes everything amazing.

8) Breathe and enjoy life:  Because this is my life.  It's what I've chosen and it's what I have.  Don't get so caught up in all the lists that I forget to enjoy all that is good about it.  Because in the end, the lists won't really matter anyways.