Five Days and Counting

Well, my training is complete and I'm in full-on taper mode. I have never liked tapering. I thought it was supposed to make a person feel spunky and refreshed. I've felt nothing but tired and heavy. For some reason I feel like I'm just not recovering and ready to race. I've been doing a lot of rolling and stretching and hope that with a few shake-out runs this week that will all turn around.

The build up to this race has been like no training cycle I've ever had. I can't remember a time when I've actually built my mileage and long runs week over week for this long a time. You'd think with the workouts I've been doing that I was training for a road marathon and not a trail ultra. A lot of that focus has been on helping my friend Matt get ready for his first 50k. Until we started really 'training' the longest race he had ever done was a 10k and the longest run of any sort was only 13 miles. As a coworker and good friend I agreed to help him get ready for this 50k. That's a lie, I didn't agree, I coerced him to let me train him. It has been one of the funnest training cycles I've ever had. We've spent several days out on the race course, hitting up miserable snow covered trails along the bench, and running up the Dimple Dell recreation area more times than I can count.

This last week was spent trying to reduce my miles and recover some strength. However, I've felt tired and uninspired. I'm hoping it's a good thing and that it is now out of my system. I know I'm going to be ready to race, really race, come Saturday. The weather forecast as of right now is not great; snowy and rainy. But that's ok. I do well in poor conditions.

I have a good gameplan for the race and if I can stick with it I should be able to better my own expectations for this race. I'm ready.