….And I’m freaking out about it now! I know what tapering is, I know what it looks like and I’ll be honest, I’ve never done it. For my first half marathon, which I ran 8 years ago {yikes} I only remember running 19k as my longest run. I followed a training plan but I couldn’t tell you what it was or how often I stuck to it.
Anyway…..I’m more focused this time around and enjoying it. I’ve had some bad weeks and some amazing weeks but my training plan doesn’t have me tapering. That freaks me out… A LOT!
Unless you’re a newbie to my blog, you can’t miss it. I’ve been blogging non-stop about my half marathon training for 10 friggin’ weeks. I’ve been following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate training plan pretty religiously with a few misses here and there.
Why I am freaking out? Well, you see….I’ve had people commenting {which I LOVE} in various forms of social media attached to this blog. They have been commenting “you must be getting close to tapering”, it’s taper time, you are NOT tapering, you have to taper!!!! That’s what’s freaking me out.
I really want to follow my plan which has me running 19k this weekend as my long run. My half is the weekend after that.
The focus is on the last two (unchecked) weeks:
Last Two Weeks
Week #12 kinda looks like a taper…right?
I’ve probably gone into overkill about it with my husband. Sorry about that one, Sai. I’ve even asked my running buddy/coach and she gave me some good advice: change-up the long run to mid-week so you have more recovery time. She also told me that I have a good base under my belt, to rest and even gave me a new 2 week out training plan to follow.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to break any world records during this half. Heck, I won’t place top 10, 20 or 30 in this half marathon. I will however, be running at a different pace then my first half eight years ago with a lot of mileage under my belt.
Hal – I almost wrote you yesterday to ask you what I should do!
Okay, let’s be honest Piper….I wrote Hal a Facebook message. I did, I did! Is that even a proper thing to do; Facebook Hal Higdon because you don’t know if you should taper. Oh man…what have I done! It will be even better if he replies!
Then, Hal posted this on Facebook….
TIP OF THE DAY: An important part of every runner’s training is rest. Running a short distance at a slow period would qualify as rest. A day where you cross-trained by swimming or cycling also might qualify as rest. But sometimes active rest is not enough; you need to take a day off when you do not run, or do much of anything. Although I promote consistency as critical to success, there are times when you simply have to kick back and do nothing. And I mean nothing! Take a week off. Take a couple of weeks off. Yes, you will lose some fitness, but you will more than make up for it if you return to training refreshed and ready to run hard again. Rest is often best.
So, do I just rest for the next two weeks? Ha ha, kidding, I won’t do that 😉 I am going to enjoy my rest days in the following two weeks. However, I’m no closer in decided if I will do my 19k long run this weekend or pretend I am tapering and just run for the fun of it.
I still can’t believe I just messaged him on Facebook…….oh my!
Do you ALWAYS taper ?
Do you stick to your training plan 2 weeks out ?
Should I just run the 19k this weekend and go with it?
Give me some advice, please and thank you 🙂
So glad I didn’t schedule this post….he wrote back. Well, someone wrote back – update tomorrow 🙂
Piper's Run 