Friday, January 9, 2009

You were (gulp) right....

Taper is in full swing. As can be expected, everything is (mentally) falling apart. It is a snowball effect. You are resting and recovering. Which means that instead of running 8 miles on the average day, you are now running 4. You body is used to 8 miles of endorphins as a daily dose. Now you've cut that in half. It's kinda like caffeine withdrawal. On top of that, add all the nervousness about said upcoming race and you have the Cranky Taper Monster. On Tuesday I made the mistake of working out with the trainer. I was only trying to learn a few new moves which I will begin to incorporate when I start my triathlon training again. And she took it easy on me, but later that night I started to have a nagging feeling in my hip. Not pain, per say, but just a new, weird feeling. One that I didn't like. One that could be a problem 18 miles into a marathon. So I took Wednesday off. I got up Thursday and didn't feel too bad so I ran my prescribed 4 miles. I felt fine during the run, but suffered through the rest of the day with tightness and the "nagging" hip. So last night, we are laying in bed and the converstion goes something like this:

Me: (grouchy, complaining about my hip)
Dan: I think you should sleep in tomorrow and forget about the 4 mile run.
Me: Do I need to run longer on Saturday then?
Dan: No. Do you honestly think that 4 miles is going to make any difference at this stage?
Me: Well.....But....I've already taken one day off this week.
Dan: It's Ok to take 2 days off in one week. This is taper, you are supposed to rest.
Me: But you never took any days off.
Dan: Yeah, and did you agree with what I was doing? Do you want to do what I say or do what I do?
Me: Well it got you to where you needed to go. I want to run.
Dan: Why? What are you going to gain?
Me: Well .....what if I can't run as fast on race day because I take tommorrow off? What if (escalating) I have maDE IT THIS FAR AND THIS HIP FUCKS UP MY RACE? (full on yelling now) I WILL DIE TRYING BEFORE I DON'T MAKE THE 3:40 CUT-OFF!!!
Dan: (Laughing)
Me: (Leaning over to reset my alarm to sleep in)
Dan: I guarantee the hip thing is nothing to worry about. If you take tomorrow off, and Saturday too if you need to, you will be fine come Sunday morning.

So I sleep in an extra hour and today..... my hip feels great! I hardly notice a glitch at all. Boy do I hate admitting when I'm wrong. But this is one situation that I will gladly shout from the rooftops "YOU WERE RIGHT!" if in fact my hip thing is all gone by Sunday. I am planning to run tommorrow. I'll keep you posted.... To bad there's not an endorphin supplement that we all can take during taper. I just can't seem to find my on-top-of-the-world, gonna-break-3:30, Boston-or-bust attitude. I can't lose my mental edge now... I need it on race day. I need it. I will find it. I will.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can commiserate. You will be FINE on race day. Stop worrying and wasting all that energy. Bottle it ALL up and we'll open it at 7:39am next week, ok? Deal? It's going to be the perfect day for you Mary!!!!!