TITLE: Beginning My Descent
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 16, 2006  1:48 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
I am almost one week into my three-week taper now.  I've only
run 29 miles so far this week, with only one track work-out.
That was an 8-miler on Wednesday, 6x800m at 3:06-3:08 per
repeat.  Tomorrow I'll do 12 miles, at a pace close to my
marathon goal.

My last two weeks of big mileage (60 and 58) tired me out.
It rained all day the day of my last long run, scheduled
to be 20 miles, so I ended up running indoors.  Now, 184
laps sounds much worse than it is...  I found a good rhythm,
had plenty of scenery to view and distractions to occupy
my mind, and I had easy access to restrooms and fluid.
But I ran just a bit faster than planned, say, 1-1.5 seconds
per lap, which took its toll over twenty miles.  I ended
up happy with my time but sorer and bit more tired than
planned.

So my body is ready for the rest.  This week I'll do 43
miles; next week, 41.  I've done a much better job this year
of striking a balance between pushing myself with hard workouts
and being patient on recovery runs and breaks.  This is the
phase of training that must be dominated by patience and
punctuated by shorter runs of intensity -- but mostly not
faster than marathon goal pace.  I will do one more speed
work-out next week, 5x1600m, as recommended by the training
plan I've followed all season.

What will be toughest for me is eating properly.  I need to
build up my fuel stores a bit over the next couple of weeks,
without overeating as my mileage goes down.  Plus, I'm not
very good about eating regularly on teaching days, because
I get into my preparation for class.  I almost wish that
someone would write a guide for how to eat during the taper.
I like to learn from patterns of successful behavior.  Of
course, I could write a guide, but I haven't found the
patterns yet...
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