Tail of the Taper

There's a lot of taper talk.

3 Weeks before the race you should....

2 Weeks before the race you should...

..... back off the mileage....

............ nothing over 10 miles at a moderate pace....

Truth is nobody knows. Truth is nobody even knows what works for them. Sometimes one thing works, and then you can try to do everything the exact same way and it doesn't work at all. That's running, that's life.

Oh, I don't think it's smart to run 100 mile weeks the month of your race, and I don't think it's smart to do a hard race the month of your race, but there are many who even argue with that. Ultra-running buddy Michelle Barton was just interviewed on Karno's blog and she swears she runs best if she does a hard race, not the month before her goal race, but the week before her goal race! That's hardcore, and I can't imagine it would work for me...... however, I ran a 22:59 in Vermont one week after running the Grandfather Mountain Marathon, so....

All that said, my body tells me, why try it? Take the final 2 weeks before the race and relax a bit. Oh, a few training runs here and there, capped by a 15 mile Croom run next Saturday at a social pace, but mostly chill.

Maybe it's a good idea, maybe it isn't, what do I know? Shoot, my goal is to run 100 miles in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it's a crapshoot any way. I can do it, I have done it, and I'm going to give it a helluva try, but basically I'm going up there on no more 3 months of training and only 2 quality months. Good luck to me, because if you can't train, luck is what you need!