The Die Is Cast...
The Taper Begins, To My Friends Running Boston, Acceptance
This week culminates fifteen weeks of progressively more challenging training and except for a few rest weeks, mileage near or at 60 per week. I’m tired, but pleased with how things went. I’m also suddenly very aware that, except getting hurt or sick, there’s probably little I can do between now and the race to change the race outcome radically visavie the work I’ve done and still could do. Peak training is over, the next few weeks are to recover and heal from that training while not losing the fitness gained during it.
So I know what I have to do: manage the taper with discipline, follow the plan, not gain weight as I reduce mileage, and get to the start line of the Maine Coast Marathon as rested and limber as possible.
And not succumb to the madness of the taper gremlins.
Their voices began to whisper yesterday as I finished my last 21-mile run, piled onto two intense training weeks. My legs were tired from the start, but that was to be expected. The point of the workout even. I had plenty of energy for the whole thing, just dead legs. But somewhere around mile 19, there’s a faint tightening of soleus deep in my calf. I know that feeling. Hasn’t bugged me this entire training cycle, but it’s been a prolonged hindrance in prior years; even bloomed into genuine un-runnable calf strains from time to time. Hello old friend. So now, just as I finish the hard part, an old injury returns? And there goes the race.
I don’t really believe that, but it’s what the voices say. I ran an easy almost-six-mile recovery run this morning and it wasn’t noticeable. Only when walking up and down stairs. It’s fine. Tomorrow’s a rest day. But… Tuesday there’s speedwork on the schedule. I’ll be up on my toes. That’s where it happens, the bad strain that sidelines me for the race. Do I skip the speedwork? Do I skip the whole taper and spend the next three weeks in a cushioned plastic bubble?
I don’t. But that’s where the thoughts begin to go. Because I — we all who do this thing — have put in so much work to get to this moment, exercised so much discipline, and there are so many things beyond our control that could torpedo a good marathon — weather, illness, asteroid strike — that the gremlins in our minds start trying to pretend they can control things by worrying about them.
Boston Marathon Tomorrow
I’ve been living with those taper gremlin voices for the past couple of weeks vicariously through my running pals, many of whom are racing Boston tomorrow. I’ll be there with my youngest son, spectating at the finish line. I’m tremendously excited for them. And empathetic as to how the last few weeks have gone.
Not everyone made it through the training cycle unscathed, and that’s part of the game of it but also the hell of it. People who are incredibly experienced, knowledgable, fit and disciplined can still find themselves with some rebellious body part demanding rest, rehab or reconsideration of the race entirely. Last-minute decisions must be made. Do I run the race but reset my goal pace? Do I not run at all for a few weeks prior to the race and hope I heal while the bike and the pool keep me conditioned? Or do I let this one go? Is discretion the better part of valor when it comes to risking long-term injury?
Many of them have shared their taper voices, and antidotes to those, with me:
Hans: Taper is overrated. 🎤
Amanda: Taper will make you grouchy and self-doubting, and it will also affect your sleep if you're like me and addicted to exercise...but I try to use it to focus on something else for the week, like work or nonrunning-related projects so I can value the extra time instead of bemoaning my lack of activity😅
Pete D: Don't get stuck in your own head; hang out with easy friends; read/watch/listen to light-hearted stuff...
Hans (again): All joking aside, I favor a 2 weeks taper, reduce volume, but not intensity. After all, taper is supposed to prepare your legs to go about 5 % faster on race day because they are rested; that's 9 min for a 3-hour marathon. I blow 9 min in a marathon in the first 6 miles all the time because my legs feel better than I am used to. Hence my repeat positive split marathons.
Cheryl: Keep the taper gremlins at bay by not feeding them after midnight 😅
Cheryl (again): I try to use the extra time to get other things done at work and home that may have lapsed. But mostly just trying to keep a positive mental attitude, knowing that I put in the work, even when those doubts come into my head.
Julia: I'm not even tapering right now, but in a conversation with my sister on the phone last week, she told me "Your body is way less fragile than you think it is" and that was very comforting.
Here’s My Peace
For me, approaching my 14th marathon, I know the things my brain is going to throw at me in the next few weeks. I don’t need a strategy for not having those thoughts anymore. I just need to know them and accept them for what they are. And more, I need to be okay with whatever happens on May 5.
I can do that. Here’s why. This came up in a literary discussion on a group long run a few weeks ago. How does a writer avoid the pressure of feeling like there’s a great weight of legacy pressing down every time they pick up the pen? I used to feel that. Sometimes it was so heavy I didn’t end up writing at all. Then one day in my mid-forties I was in a bookstore in a little seaside town, feeling the usual mixture of joy and anxiety I always did in bookstores back then. All those titles, all those writers, all jockeying to catch a potential reader’s eye, competing for their place in the psyche of the universe. So many names I, even as an avid reader and writer, would never know or remember. But it doesn’t matter. Because the writers we love, the maybe-famous writers, aren’t writing because they’re famous or beloved. They’re writing because they’re writers. And would likely go on writing even if they never published again. At least that’s how I felt in that moment. The pressure of legacy fell away and I realized why I wrote. I wrote because the process was meaningful to me.
That’s why I run marathons. Sure, race day is great, but I do the marathon for the process. The structure and discipline of the training. The push toward doing something more than I could do before. The camaraderie and friendship; the joy of sharing the training with some of the best people in the world. I run marathons so my kids can see me approach challenging long-term goals with patience and dedication and maybe take something from that to use in their lives when I’m long gone. I run marathons so I can both age gracefully and refuse to age gracefully. I’m not going gently into that good night. I’m going sweating and breathing hard and with aching knees and the wind in my hair and a song in my heart.
What could the voices of the taper gremlins possibly say to that? They can’t sabotage my marathon, because so much of what I needed from it I already have.
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Goodluck and Godspeed in Boston tomorrow, my friends. I’ll see you at the finish.