Tapering!

I used to hate the taper. It seemed to long and boring. My body was so revved up from training and during the taper it would feel like I was just sitting around on my butt, doing nothing. NOT ANY MORE!!!! I have grown to looooooooooove the taper. I think my mindset has changed for two reasons. First, my training over the last 4 years has been so different. Instead of logging a ton of miles and most of them fairly slow I now run fewer miles but every one of them is quality. The workouts are hard! Second, my old taper plan was so much lazier than Scott's taper plan. During my old taper I would just run easy 4 times a week but Scott still likes to see some quality stuff during the taper to keep the body revved up. So for those two reasons I have grown to loooooove the taper weeks. For Leona Divide 50M I don't get to fully taper but I did get a cut back on my back to back runs this last weekend and I don't have any tempo workout this Thursday. I still have 2 miles at M-Pace mixed in a 60 minute run but that's just to keep me hungry. :) My body is feeling so recovered and ready so I hope I pull out some moments of glory out there this Saturday.

Last weekend while some of my buds were running Peterson Ridge in Sister's, OR Kris and I were doing a 2-2.5 hour run. She needed to do a KPR and I needed to just have fun and push to 30 minutes at Threshold when I felt ready. We did a loop then split at one of the firelanes in Forest Park. We played "Blind Chase". She went down to Lief to do her KPR work and I kept on the trail. We planned to meet up at the bottom of one of the firelanes. The goal was to beat each other to the meeting point. She took off and of course ran like the wind and I pushed hard to beat her. One advantage I had is that I didn't inform her we were playing "Blind Chase" until I beat her, ha, ha, ha!!!!! It was a close call though. She payed my back by dusting me the rest of way home leaving poor Emma (her dog) to try an herd me up to her and Zoe (her other dog). Poor Emma just kept trying and trying to make me move faster but when her mama got to far away she dusted me too! After the run I got to try on Kris's work clothes. Not everyday do you get to dress up like a Portland Firefighter......:). Those suits are incredibly heavy and that hat is insanely heavy. I would surely die in the fire before any poor soul got rescued.

Sunday was just 70 minutes of recovery and the rest of week looks like this:

Monday = Off

Tuesday = 90 minutes with 10X30 second strides with 2-3 minutes cooldown in between. Before starting the strides you gradually climb your HR to 3A for 30-40 minutes.

Wednesday = 60 minutes with 2 miles at M-Pace

Thursday = Off

Friday = 30 minutes with stride outs, 10 of them lasting 10 seconds each.

Saturday = RUN LIKE THE WIND!

I have built a pace chart for 9:40. I think I can do this and hopefully more in the 9:30 range. This race is no wimpy event with 9,000 of climb. Oh.....and the heat....it's been hot in LA. Us Oregonians will surely come home with a tan/burn. I am psyched for the race.