Only A Week Left Before Marathon #5

Well here I am tapering again. I think it is safe to say that I ‘survived the Pfitz’. To be more specific, The Pfitzinger 18/70 Training Plan. This was, by far, the hardest that I have ever trained for anything in my life. It is pretty common for runners to get cranky during the taper period because they are not running and I have had experience this myself. You feel like you are loosing your fitness because you are not out there running. My last marathon proved me wrong about this and I now love the taper period.

As I progressed through the training plan, I could tell that my fitness was improving a lot. For the past three weeks my Strava feed has been riddled with PR’s at all distances, long and short. In fact, just last night during my 7 mile run, I ended up running a distance of 2 miles faster than I ever have.

This plan has a three-week taper period with weekly distances of 56, 46 and 30 (not including the race). This seems like a lot of running for a taper but I am putting my trust the plan. It has served me well so far so there is no reason to doubt it now. This week will really feel like I am tapering. I still run six days but all of the distances are 4, 5 and 7 miles and – aside from one interval workout – the paces are generally slow.

Now is when I really need to concentrate on my diet however. Right now my weight is exactly where I want it to be for this race but I will gain water-weight this week from the carb loading. It can be a little tricky trying to eat a lot of carbs while – at the same time – reducing your overall food intake because you are not running as much. If you is done correctly, you will gain several pounds of water weight because of the glycogen you are storing up but you won’t gain any weight from fat.

There are a few other things that should be monitor also such as fiber, caffeine, potassium and sodium. While they are important, they are not nearly as important as fueling up on carbohydrates and water. Each race provides me with a little more knowledge about this stuff but it still seems like there is a lot more to learn.

Here we go, the final stretch.