Life in mid-taper

The hard work has now been done and I am now in the middle of my taper for the Lakeland 100 race in 9 days time. On Sunday, I went and did my final longish run of a couple of hours and like all runs during my taper, I felt awful. It was sluggish, I had heavy legs, a bit of a head cold and a sore back. I just wanted to get the run done and start to rest up properly.

Towards the end of term, I always feel pretty knackered and everything feels hard work. I have convinced myself that having a full week off from work before the race will give me all the recovery time I need and I'm sure that come 5:30pm next Friday I will be like a caged tiger ready for the off.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow at work, not just because it is the last day of term, but also as I organise some mile races as the final event of the year. We have a staff "devil-take-the-hindmost" race to whip the crowd up into a frenzy, followed by an elite race where the best runners from the various year groups have a serious race for trophies and the school year is rounded off with a fancy dress fun run. Fingers crossed that the weather stays OK!

I will squeeze in a couple of runs on Thursday and Friday, probably 1:30 hours and one hour, before heading off to Lytham, making my annual pilgrimage to watch The Open golf championship. Come on Westwood!!!

My mood seems to fluctuate between wanting a few more weeks to get past this heavy-legged feeling and wanting to get on with the race as I have thought about nothing else for a year. Aaahhh, the trials and tribulations of the taper!

If you haven't already seen it, check out John's Lakeland 100 trailer.