Blog Posts From Turtle Training Tagged With taper

6 Days to B&A

Steve Carton — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:13:57 GMT

Six days to go. Ran 27 miles last week. Somewhat easier paces that I've been running. Did some lightweight intervals yesterday.

Plan for this week: today: 6-8 easy. Wednesday: 6-8 easy, Saturday: 2 at tempo pace. Marathon Sunday.

Ready or not...

Final 10 days of Taper to B&A, 3/1

Steve Carton — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:19:05 GMT

I'm in the final 10 days before the B&A Marathon, 3/1/09. Feeling very ready, psyched.

Been thinking about what runs to do for this last stretch. I'll try and get an LSD in Saturday morning - maybe 11-12 miles, but at a slow. easy pace. Then maybe some track work on Sunday, but easing up on the intensity a bit. That will put me at about 28 miles for this week, which is probably a good taper number.

Next week, I'll run an easy 8 miles or so on Monday and maybe 6 easy on Wednesday. I might go for a "wake-up" 2-3 mile easy run on Saturday. Or not!

This will be the 3rd time running the B&A, so I have a very good mental picture of the route. My RB is planning to run the half, so we'll stay together that far. I've worked a lot on pacing over the past few weeks, so am hopeful I won't make the same mistake this year as last - going out way too fast and then dying at the end.

Optimistically...

Not Tapering Like I Usually do

Steve Carton — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 18:33:23 GMT

Well, as I've pontificated before (does that make me a pontif?), I'm a big believer in a 3-week taper before a marathon. But I really didn't feel I got enough LSD work in before the next marathon, which is 2-weeks from tomorrow. I had a couple of 18 milers, but nothing over 20 since the Rehoboth marathon back at the end of November.

Now, this will be my seventh marathon in two years, so I have a big mileage base. But I was still concerned. But, I'm now into the 3-week taper period. So I talked this over with my coach and he told me that, essentially, I probably didn't need a 20+ mile run in. He went on to say however, that if I thought I could use the confidence that having at least one 20+, and as long as I wasn't trying to recover from any injuries, it was probably fine to have a 2-week taper.

I'm not nursing any injuries (except the obvious mental ones).So I went out this morning and did a 21 miler. Kept up a good pace throughout and finished strong. So I'm trying something new (to me) - a 2-week taper. I have a reduce-mileage plan for the next week and then just easy maintenance the next week. And then, Sunday, March 1, the B&A Trail Marathon.

I'll report back on how this works out.

Tapering to the B&A Marathon? Not!

Steve Carton — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:16:07 GMT

Well, last Sunday was three weeks to the B&A marathon (which is on 3/1/09). I should be starting to taper - let the wounds heal and all that. But I'm not happy with my training. I never got in a really long LSD. Longest was 19 miles. I really feel the need for a 22 miler. So I'm going to push my luck this weekend and shorten the taper to 2 weeks and do a 22 this weekend. Should be okay, It's sort of like I've been tapering already!

T-Minus 5 days (A little less) to The Rehoboth Beach Marathon

Steve Carton — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:22:42 GMT

Five days to go. This promises to be a PR-run if all the stars are lined up! I'm hoping to break 4:30 and should be able to on the flat course and cool day. So far, the weather predictions are a bit conflicted -- either low 40s (for a high) and sunshine or mid-40s and maybe some rain. We'll see as the week progresses.

Training for this week:

6 easy miles today. 4 easy Wednesday. 2 werry werry easy Friday.

Tapering to the Baltimore Marathon, 2008, Second Week

Steve Carton — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:34:46 GMT

7 miles last night, beautiful and at tempo pace. Passed some runners (or were they walkers?). Felt like I could keep going forever! Nice cool weather. Had to stop mid-way for a nature call (I really should not eat salads and other fiber for lunch on a running day). But a great run along the Mt/ Vernon trail.

We're planning 10-12 for tomorrow, and some easy stuff for the weekend and next week. I think we're ready!

Tapering to the Frederick Marathon, 2007

Steve Carton — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:50:20 GMT

We're now 9 days to the Frederick (locally and affectionately refered to as "Fredneck") marathon (Here). As usual, I don't feel ready. My left knee is swollen (on the outside, water on the knee) and hurts. I went to the Dr. and he said I'm not damaging it. But it aches all the time. And my left ankle hurts too. In fact my left shoulder hurts as well. Maybe this is because I'm not left-leaning enough? And I have trouble breathing this time of year -- allergies of some kind or another.

This will be my fourth marathon, so I guess I no longer worry about finishing. I'm pretty comfortable with that. It's just the manner of the finish. I think my hopes of breaking 4:30 are not realistic this time around. I ran 5 tempo miles Wednesday and 12 easy miles yesterday (Thursday). The easy miles were much harder than they should have been. I'm concerned about how well this marathon will go.

My plan for the next 9 days is to run an easy 5 miles Monday, get the Dr. to look at my knee again Tuesday, run an easy 2 miles Thursday and then do the Marathon on Sunday. I'm hoping the Dr. can drain the fluid and inject something to keep it from bothering me. That was what he indicated when last I saw him, anyway.

Straining onward...

To Run (the B&A) or Not To Run, That is the Question

Steve Carton — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:48:34 GMT

T-Minus 4 days, 15 hours, 25 or so minutes to the Baltimore and Annapolis Marathon, so I'm in my final week of tapering. I really haven't trained as much for this one as I should have, owing partly to this pesky kneecap injury suffered on a boat in the Virgin Islands. I had one 16 mile run at PR speeds and a 17 miler 2 days later, though slower. But I felt fine while running -- it was after that my kneecap hurt. So I took a week off and ran just a few warmup miles on the weekend. Well, my kneecap got all gushy with fluids. It's slowly receding (like my hairline).

So my plan (such as it is) is to start the marathon and check my knee at the half-way point. A cool thing about the B&A is that runners can decide to do the half, at the half-way point -- no earlier. So I really can postpone the decision until the last possible moment. And since I've done many runs further than 13.1 since the injury, I'm pretty confident about finishing that distance.

I've talked to a couple of trainer-types about this and they seem to feel that I probably didn't tear anything inside the knee and that this is more superficial. I hope so. And maybe that's just what I want to believe! So I'll start, maybe finish the half, maybe the whole, take some tylenol.

And then, as Toshi suggested, ice ice baby.

Late in the Game Injuries?

Steve Carton — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:35:08 GMT

Well, we're now 3 weeks from the B&A marathon and I may have a problem. Two weeks back my wife and I spent a week on a chartered sailboat in the BVIs. I know, it's not a good thing to take a week off training, but sometimes you just have to buck up and do these things. Anyway, during a moment of weakness (not uncommon for me anymore), I mashed my knee into the cockpit coaming. It welled up pretty good, but then was better. Until now anyway. After my final training distance runs last week, my left kneecap is just plain sore. No swelling or anything and it didn't bother me while running at all.

Since this is supposed to be the first week of taper, I think I'll leave off running entirely for the next few days -- maybe until Thursday or Friday. Let it feel better. Then try something short and easy -- maybe 10-12 at a slow, easy pace. Of course my hard pace would seem slow (though maybe not easy) to anyone observing. So I mean true turtle slow. And hope this passes.

Taper, Speed and the Weather

Steve Carton — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:36:00 GMT

I don't get this. Through the summer, as my RB and I have been training for the MCM, the heat and humidity have been oppressive. Our times were correspondingly slow (even for turtles). Our water intake was correspondingly high (I think I drank well over a gallon of water during one long run). So now it's cooler and dryer and our paces are picking up and our water consumption is down to a mere fire-hose. And I felt great about that as we headed toward the taper.

But now, in the taper, we're trying to run a little slower than our target race pac (tortoise + 15). But, we can't seem to run that slowly, especially for these shorter distances. We both feel soooo much better in the cooler weather that we're just running faster than we ever ran in the summer. So last Wednesday we did a 12-mile taper long-run and we ran it in a PR.But we were trying to go slow!

I guess that bodes well for the actual marathon.

Tapering to the MCM

Steve Carton — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 19:44:00 GMT

So we're now less than 2 weeks to the MCM and I'm "tapering", though I don't really know what that means. I've certainly cut back on the long runs -- last week was 16, 12 this week and only a 7-mile "long run" the final week. Plus some other light-weight runs. I ran 5 last evening and although I was taking it easy, I still ran it at faster than "marathon" pace. After the long slogs, these almost don't seem like they're worth getting sweaty for!

I'm a bit confused on what I'm supposed to do on these non-long runs. An article in Runners World talks about shortening the taper and keeping up the intensity. Other things I've read seem to contradict this and push for a bigger slow-down.

So, mostly I'm just listening to what my muscles and joints -- if they ache, I slow down. And I guess I'm trying to force myself to run all my runs at my turtle-target pace of 10:30-11/mile. No more speed work. Hope that's right -- we'll see in 12 days!

Tapering to the Marine Corp Marathon, 2007

Steve Carton — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:37:00 GMT

Hooray, the "long" runs are done. In the past 3 weeks, my running bud and I did 3 20+ milers. In the awesome heat and humidity of the Washington DC area no less. And now that the heat has broken, we're starting our taper. Almost Laurel and Hardy timing.

In spite of that, I don't really feel ready. Mind you, my goal is simply to finish. Well, I guess I have two goals -- the stated goal of finishing and the unstated goal (which I whisper to myself) of maybe breaking 4:30. But in spite of 3 20+ mile training runs, I dread the last 6 miles of the marathon. It has taken every week of training to finally get a hydration plan working. I want to do at least one more 23 miler to feel sure I have that right. But we're tapering; the idea of cutting back just seems counter-intuitive: why not run another long run? I mean, I understand the reasons -- heal thy injuries, build thy glycogen stores; get thy rest... It just runs counter. Maybe I need to think of the MCM itself as the next long training run!