Not In My Vocabulary

The words such as rest, easy and relax are words that I understand but have a hard time following. I know how important these words are to us ultrarunners, especially before a race, but I find myself believing that they apply to others and not myself!!

It's one thing to taper a couple of days for a 5K and quite other thing to taper 3 weeks for a 100 miler!!

In college, our cross-country coach, the famous Sid Sink, who ran with Dave Wottle, pounded it in our heads that more is better!! Two-a-days everyday, even on meet days, PUSH, PUSH, PUSH with little rest!!! To this day, 30 years later, I still go by those words!!! He was a great coach and he made me the runner, I am, to this very day!! However, the words rest and easy were never mentioned unless we tapered a couple of days before the conference meet!!

So, here I am, at the age of 50, still trying to pound the miles out without rest or days off. I know training has changed throughout the years but unfortunately, it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks!!!!!!

I am trying!! It's hard!!! But I know, in order to be sucessful at running ultras, rest and tapering is very important!! With that being said, in the next 17 days, I'm going to try and be a good girl and TAPER. This week will only be 60 miles, next week 40 miles and the last week 20 miles!! I should be ready to go come race day :) I know it won't be easy and my OCD will give me problems but I am tough and strong!!! I hope!!lol

Today, I ran 6 miles on the road, 1.25 miles in the pool that included 8x25yd sprints and 4x50yds sprints and 45 min. spin class