Taper: A New Approach

Saturday November 1
After 10 full months of working with Hillary, I know that as I approach race day it is not going to feel the same as the previous 7 years.  In the past, I followed [insert random training plan here] which prescribed a 3 week gradual taper.  I HATED it.  I was grouchy.  I felt sluggish, and bloated, and not at all peppy.  By the time race day arrived I was a mess.  I mean, don't come close to me because I might scratch your eyes out - too much unused energy, too much sitting around.  Now, on race day it was... fine.  I swam, biked and ran and had enough energy to get through the day.  But I didn't have that little something extra.  I made progress, because I was consistent in training for 7 years.  But there was never going to be anything special.

Nowadays, I am pushing the envelope with distance, speed and volume all the way until 10 days prior to race day.  I have come to recognize the signs that I am almost at my limit... almost.  Hitting the goal of each workout becomes more and more challenging even if it's a goal I've hit a dozen times before.  My level of sleepy-tiredness is magnified ten-fold.  I am on the verge of breaking physically and mentally.  Everything hurts.  Not "injury" hurt.  But ache hurt.  Soreness hurt.  Fatigue hurt.  She takes me right to the brink, dangles me over the edge and then snaps me back just in the nick of time.
The other day, after finishing a grueling 5 days block, I logged on and saw the workouts prescribed for the rest of the week.  I nearly broke down in tears.  OK, I did shed a few actual tears, but I quickly reminded myself that there's no crying in baseball.  It had taken me 4 tries over 2 months to accomplish the goal of one particular run workout.  Now, when I am at my most fatigued, I am supposed to nail the intervals once again.  But 2 days later when I execute the workout, on still tired legs, I could not have felt more strong.  And damn if I didn't hit the goal.

And I think that's the difference, the key to this approach.  I feel so fucking strong.  I am tired.  Yes.  I am fatigued.  Yes.  I would LOVE to sleep past 4 am.  Yes.  But I am so. fucking. strong., and I feel strong, and when race day rolls around you will see my strength.

When I get on my trainer for my second interval workout of the day and pedal through the warm up at barely 12 mph, and still manage to squeak out the power numbers needed I feel amazing.  Even when I start to fall apart and my numbers start dropping... I start talking myself through every single interval..you can do this.... you CAN do this!, and I am able to gain those numbers back.

Monday November 3
By some miracle, I feel better this week than I did 7 days ago, despite having another week of hard efforts on my legs.  On Sunday, I repeated my 2 hours of intervals on the beeline, only this time it was in the middle of a long ride.  Last week I followed the intervals up with a HARD swim on Monday and a 20 miler at race pace on Tuesday.  I literally fought for every single mile on that run.  I told myself "If you don't hit this pace, Hillary is not going to let you run outside.  You are going to be on the treadmill where she can control the pace.  You have to hit this pace.  You HAVE to hit this pace."  Now, this may be true or it may not be true, but it's what I needed to tell myself in order to keep fighting when my body wanted to slack off.  When I am 15 miles into the marathon at Ironman, my body is going to feel the same way and I need to be able to keep fighting for every mile.

This week, I followed up the long interval ride with an 18 miler at race pace... and I felt pretty darn good.  No.  I felt so fucking strong.  I met a friend for a 5 am start, and we clicked off miles a few seconds under target pace.  Mile after mile.  By the time I started to feel a little fatigue creep in we were past 12 miles.  I got a little quiet as I focused a little more on working the pace.  We never let up.  We finished our final 6 miles as fast, or a few seconds faster than the first 12.

And it is with this effort I build confidence for race day.  Every time I think I can't take anymore.  Every time my legs feel too tired, too fatigued.  Every time I accomplish a goal during training, I feel more and more ready for race day.  I feel strong.  Really strong.  This is a new feeling.  I've been ready before, but I've never felt this. fucking. strong.

Wednesday November 5
Trainer ride with hard power intervals followed by steady state race effort.  Leg's are not feeling as zippy as I had hoped after feeling so great on Monday!  But this is completely normal.  I should have felt worse on Monday than I did, and today my legs just showed the fatigue a bit.  On top of that, I transitioned to a run and it was super windy!  Like unseasonably windy.  This could throw in a bit of turmoil to those from out of the area coming in for race day.  All the more benefit for me!

Saturday November 8
Fun little splash n dash in the books today!  I showed up early to do a 45 minute spin before getting in the water.  It was a good open water swim practice with a fast and furious 2k followed by a 5k run.  I was out of the water lickety-split and was running scared.  At the turn around I could see the 2 men behind me closing in fast.  I ran hard and even had to sprint to the finish to not get caught.  I ended up only a minute off of my 5k pr... after biking and swimming!  Yes, I am ready!  After the dash, I hopped back on my bike and headed to work for the rest of the day.

Thursday November 13
I am officially caught up on sleep.  After several days off of work allowing me to sleep for 11 hours at night, plus a nap in the afternoon, I'm back to feeling refreshed and awake before my alarm goes off in the morning.  Today I ran and biked easy before work and it took me until after I finished before I realized that I had shaken off "the taper" and actually felt pretty good.  No more baby-deer-just-learning-to-walk wobbliness when I run.  Just in time for race day!

Saturday November 15
A quick little run and spin before heading to Tempe to check into our hotel!  I was instructed to run "easy" which means I don't look at my watch.  When I got back I was thrilled to see my "easy" pace was actually my regular easy pace not my in the middle of huge training block easy pace.  At some point in training you start to wonder if you're ever going to run fast-easy again... today I did!  It is GO time!!

12 hours to go....Final thoughts:

Heading into race day I think about how truly lucky I am to be able to do the thing that I love, day after day, month after month, year after year.  I never take one day for granted, especially watching my husband struggle coming back from injury.  Every day, even when I am exhausted, I look forward to getting up and challenging myself in my assigned workout.  I am already planning to meet with Coach on Monday to talk about the off-season and how to make me stronger for 2015.

My heart breaks for my friend H. who had to pull out of the race at the last minute.  Her heart was 100% in it, but due to some ongoing health problems it would have been the absolute wrong decision for her to get in the water.  I will be thinking of her every step of the way tomorrow.  This one is for her.

I am so so incredibly lucky to be working with Coach Hillary.  I have 100% faith and trust in her plan and I have seen massive changes in the last 10 months- just day to day in training.  When I signed on with her, I had mentally committed to a 3 year plan.  We are officially nearing the end of season 1 and absolutely cannot wait to get back to work on season 2!!  Every single day I have support from my Team HPB mates who encourage me and inspire me.

I am anxious, excited, nervous about what tomorrow will bring.  One thing I am NOT is AFRAID.  As you have probably noticed, I am pretty open about my dreams and feelings.  I am not blind.  I am not naive.  I know exactly what I'm up against.  I am 100% prepared to give all that I have, every time I toe the line.  I am not afraid to fail.  I know that I will try, and fail, 100 times before I succeed.  But I will never succeed unless I try.  Good night, and sweet dreams of racing.

New Year, New Plan, New Perspective

New Year's Track Session!  The entry began.  "20 x 400 holding 1:40," my coach continued. "Done as 5 sets of 4 as 3 on 2:15 + 1 on 3:15.  Take at least one gel half way through.  Warm up 20 minutes and cool down 10 minutes."

I did the math in my head.  5 miles of repeats holding 6:40 per mile pace ....which happens to be faster than my 5k PR pace.

I tried to think back to the meeting I just had with my new coach.  Didn't I tell her that I hadn't done track in months?  I was a little hung over from my birthday celebration but I'm sure we discussed it.  And I know I told her I usually stuck with about 3 miles worth of intervals amidst a longer warm up and cool down.

Crap.  Panic began setting in.  I was totally going to embarrass myself.  What have I done?  I still had two weeks to think about this track workout before it actually happened.  Plenty of time to lose sleep over my impending doom.

In truth I was really excited about my new training plan... but this one workout... this first workout gave me angst.  I convinced myself that it was no big deal.  Coach likes holiday and birthday workouts to be especially epic.  That's all it is.  A holiday track session.

Much to my husband's dismay, as the clock rolled to 8 pm on New Years Eve I began the getting-ready-for-bed ritual.  I cited my next day's track workout as reason enough to forgo any celebration.

Right on schedule (I had invited friends to partake in the track workout) we departed our house in warm up to the track.  Two brave souls were waiting for us when we arrived a mile and half later.  I finished my warm up with a couple of loops around the big oval and we got down to business.

DB would be our official timer, keeping us on the 2:15 send off.  I would track the actual 400 meter splits.  And KL would accompany me around and around and around until the final loop was in the books.   MT was joining us for half the repeats on her own interval goal.

The first 4 flew by relatively easily though I was thankful for the extra minute of rest that accompanied the 4th interval of each set.  The next 4 were smooth but by the time we reached the 10th and 11th interval the shit was getting real.  Following the 12th interval I was to take the gel as instructed.  "I can't do it! I'll throw it back up!" I protested.  My friends were the voice of reason.  "Do what your coach says and let her make the adjustment next time."   I swallowed the Honey Stinger gel and a few gulps of water.

The next 4 intervals were about a second slower as my throat threatened to open up and spew stomach contents by the final 100 meters of each one.  Ironically though my final 4 x 400 were the fastest set of them all!  Hmmm, coincidence?  Or did my gel kick in?  Is coach trying to teach me to go fast on a full stomach?  Is it possible that this wasn't some test to see if I would fall apart after 3 miles, but rather intended to show me what I am capable of??

Maybe Coach actually knows her shit and I am in for the ride of my life?!?!

Overall we threw out our two outliers: a 1:31 split for the first 400 and a 1:39 for the 13th-ish interval... and the remainder of our intervals fell nicely, consistently between 1:35-1:38.  I was pumped!  I couldn't wait for my next workout!  I am going to be stronger, faster, better!  I was so ready to say goodbye to 2013 after a mediocre year and this was the best new years day ever!!

We cooled down as we ran back home and changed into our bike kits for an hour easy ride meant to loosen up the legs.  It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the quiet morning as the rest of the world began to wake up.  I logged my workout and beamed with pride and joy when Coach responded with praise for a job well done.

Motto for 2014?  I CAN!    There's no room for doubt. No room for fear.  I turned over the keys to my training so that I don't have to think.  I just have to DO.  I can and I will.  And 2014 will be my best year ever!