Week 17 Part 2: Starting to feel the benefits of tapering?

I believe I may be starting to exhibit strong signs of Bipolar Disorder.  My marathon related mood swings this week have been a little... extreme.  This hasn't been helped by other factors, the Easter Holidays being one.  Stress levels are running high in the house, and sleep levels aren't.

My thoughts at the moment are a confused and jumbled mess of wildly misplaced optimism with very little basis and probably equally misplaced despair.  I've not trained enough, I've not done enough of the right training recently, I'm going to be slow, much slower than I want to be.  I've got slow in general, what if I can't get fast again after the marathon?  What if I stay slow?  What if I just never get back to quite where I was let alone make the improvements I had believed I was capable of?  What if I can't start the marathon because of injury?  What if I can't complete it because my Achilles plays up?  What if I can't complete it just because I'm not fit enough?  What if I do complete it and just run a time that leaves me feeling massively disappointed in myself, and then I still can't get quick again afterwards.

I tend to deal with low moods by running, or at least by exercising, but of course I'm tapering so this isn't really an option at the moment.  Instead try to talk myself out of these moods logically.  I'm a reasonably good runner for my age, nothing special, but above average.  Even on reduced training a reasonably good time is perfectly feasible if I pace myself well.  I'm starting to feel some life coming back into my legs as I'm tapering.  I've reminded myself of training runs I've done where I've run a good pace for a significant amount of time, and felt strong doing it.  I tell the little demons in my head who keep pointing out to me this is now a while back and I haven't felt strong for a while to shut the fuck up.  They largely ignore me.

Saturday morning I went to parkrun with a goal of running at the top end of tempo pace, 7:00 minute mile pace or a little quicker.  When I planned this the day before it felt like a mammoth task which is utterly ridiculous.  It's not long since I was running 5k at 6:15 pace, so why would that feel daunting?  That's just where my confidence was on Friday, still suffering with the tail end of a cold, tired, tight calf, and generally feeling like a wreck.  On Saturday morning I got up and warmed up and my calf didn't feel tight.  In fact, as I warmed up in the kitchen at home I even commented to my husband that for the first time in a long time I felt a little bit boingy.  I jogged up the parkrun with absolutely no doubt at all that I could do what I wanted to, and the temptation to push myself started to kick in.  

I resisted, started the run with a friend from the club, ran with her for a little while until she started to push the pace, automatically my instinct was to match her but I had a word with myself and eased off.  In the end I ran perfect splits for what I wanted to do, 6:49, 6:47, 6:49, 6:37.  No sprinting, no stress, and I felt awesome.  I suddenly realised that not only was I relatively easily running sub seven minute miles but I was chatting, boinging, and wanted to push.  I smiled almost the entire way round and must have looked like a right grinning idiot, but my mood just rocketed.  No, even if I had run all out I'm not as quick as I was four months ago over that distance, all out I know I couldn't run at my PB pace just now, but I realised that I wasn't as far off as I'd thought and getting that extra bit of speed back in afterwards stopped feeling like a monumental task. 

Feeling the benefits of tapering in my legs and no pain at all from the dodgy calf or Achilles, my confidence rocketed way too far in the other direction.  Maybe I could run my initial target pace I thought, after all it's a lot slower than this and this is feeling pretty maintainable for a good while, I can do it, I'm invincible, I have this!  

I don't, but I hope today I'm thinking clearly and getting some balance.  If my leg holds I can aim for my half way house pace from the start and have a chance of achieving it.  If I don't, I'll do the training differently for the next one, and I will run faster.  This week I'm only running a few miles before Sunday.  I inadvertently entered a race which is tomorrow, without clocking it was only six days before the marathon.  I had thought to skip it, but actually, I can exercise some self control.  I've done little with the club recently and I've missed that so I'm just going to rock up and run it at a little slower than target marathon pace.  I'd like to do it at marathon pace, but I am expecting a complete mud bath and it's the effort level I want more than the pace so I'll factor that in.  I'll place badly, probably run my slowest ever 10k, may even pace for someone after my target time if anyone is, and just enjoy a muddy run.

Thursday I've got 3 miles on the books, with a few short strides, and Saturday I may just do a good dynamic warm up and a mile or so to stretch the legs.  Really nothing to add any fatigue at all.  I want the calf to feel like it does right now come Sunday, and who knows, maybe I'll actually enjoy myself. For now, I am breaking my drive to eat healthily just a little bit, and spending this evening with my new shiny gold covered friend.  Happy Easter Folks.