The Training Week That Was… 10/22-28

My trusty, old-school pen and paper training log (pictured to the right) tells part of the tale of how far I've come...

With my “big race” being three weeks away, I began my taper on Saturday, a week sooner than planned. The reasoning behind this conscious choice to lower my mileage was that I had begun feeling some achiness in my ankles and I want to avoid any potential overtraining.

An unanticipated by-product of this shift in mileage is that I gained two pounds, which brought my weight to 182 lbs, two pounds over my self-imposed optimal weight range of between 177-180 lbs. Foolishly, while decreasing my mileage, and therefore the number of calories I would burn, I had not changed my eating habits. No worries, though, as I now have two weeks to balance my diet, cleanse my system, prepare mentally, and stay loose with run distances ranging from 10 miles at the high end to 2 miles on the low side of things.

In the recap below those miles I was schedule to run appear in parentheses. AS previously mentioned, I did not meet the total mileage goal I had been scheduled to run this week was of 56 miles opting instead to begin a taper:

Legend: R = Running, w/A (with my wife, Anne). I've also noted increases (+x) or decreases (-x) from the previous week)

Monday: Recovery Day
Tuesday: (4) R 5.3 miles
Wednesday: (10) R 10.4 miles
Thursday: (8) R 8.2 miles
Friday: Recovery Day
Saturday: (22) R 12.7 miles
Sunday: (10) R 6.2 miles

TOTALS--R 42.8 (-11 miles from the previous week)
Weigh-In*: 182 lbs. (+2 lbs.) [* took place at 5:00 a.m. on 10/29]

I must confess that despite the miles and positive energy being sent my way by friends and fmaily, I am a little anxious about the race with so many variables still to be determined: What kind of weather will we have--will it snow? Will we have another heatwave? Am I strong mentally enough? Can my legs hold up for the entire race? Just how steep are those hills?

Where my focus goes my energy flows so in two weeks we'll see that I CAN do this.

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!