I’m only a few days into the taper and I’m already going a wee bit insane. It doesn’t help that this is my second rest day in-a-row. With a race on Sunday, my running schedule was thrown off a little this week. I want to run the marathon, like, now!
Aside from decreasing my overall mileage, this week looks like any other training week – speed, tempo, easy, and the race. I can’t even refocus my taper insanity onto Sunday’s race, since I’m using it as a marathon paced run! This extra time has allowed my mind to obsess. Obsess over the persistent post-nasal drip (gross, I know) I’ve been having. Am I getting a cold? Is it allergies? Since I’m allergic to everything and the pollen count is sky high, I believe it’s allergies. Another huge obsession is with my race day goal. I spend lots of time crunching the numbers and visualizing. More on that next week…that’s a post in and of itself!
Since you know what they say about an idle mind, I have been trying to obsess less and spend more time…
– Relaxing and catching up on TV (specifically Friday Night Lights)
– Taking Hawk on walks. Hawk loves the taper because of all the extra walks!
– Tackling my to-do list. I could do this…or watch another episode of Friday Night Lights.
– Read. Since I have to cut back on running, I may as well read about running! I do have about 5 running books to read.
What do you do to keep yourself (and your mind) from going insane during the taper?
I know exactly how you feel! Last time I tapered, I don’t think I went too crazy until 1-2 weeks before…was obsessing about my pre-race menus, constantly reading the RW forums, checking the weather report every five minutes, revising my race plan…I tried to spend plenty of time relaxing and reading, for sure, caught up with lots of friends I had neglected a bit in the really tough weeks of training. Also did quite a bit of cooking, which is always fun and relaxing!
It’s funny – I’m not even running the London marathon this weekend and I’m feeling nervous on behalf of all the runners! 🙂
I feel your pain with the post-nasal drip lady. UGH! This upcoming half is the first race i’ve ever formally trained for (only run 5/10ks before this). So i’ve never had to taper. The blogosphere is NOT making me look forward to it!
It’s disgusting, isn’t it?
Good luck on your half!! Tapering is never fun but it does work!
I did a lot of organizing during my taper. It helped burn off some energy and my house was less cluttered too 🙂
You sound exactly like me during my taper. I get insane phantom pains, think every itch is the flu attacking me, and obsess over every detail of the race. I have yet to get good at dealing with it, using the extra time to read is a great idea though.