countdown's on

figured i should probably write at least a little something now that the countdown to the 'satch is on. again, not that anybody pays any attention to this, but in the interest of gathering my own thoughts.

taper is coming along i suppose. have not really been adhering to any particular strict plan, besides eating and sleeping a lot! the initial taper plan was to cut my usual training time in half during week 1, then cut that in half again during week 2, with week 3 being spent at elevation. during week 1 i was pretty much drained due to 6 solid weeks of the hardest training i've ever put myself through for a race. the only thing that may be comparable is double sessions of football practice, and anybody who has lived through double sessions will be the first to tell you that they were brutal. but at that time, quitting was just not an option. for better or for worse, i simply could not have imagined going home and telling my parents that i quit! i would have been too scared of what my parents would have done to me! this time is no different, quitting simply is not an option. if i fall off the mountain, or break my leg, that's one thing. but quitting due to tiredness, soreness, pain, fatigue, etc just isn't an available option.

don't know whether all that laurel highlands water finally caught up to me, or maybe it was just general nerves, but i had some stomach problems for about a week. things seem to be somewhat back on track now, but i'm trying to play it cautious for the time being. two nights before laurel, i had major stomach problems, so i'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen this time too. still not sure what that was all about.

for the first week, the legs were downright tired, but i kept all the sessions brief and easy. during today's run, the legs felt a little bit sluggish so i walked most of the hills. the general philosophy of my taper is to just move around enough to burn off some of the unused energy, which is coming on like a tidal wave.

for 6 weeks, the body got used to producing at a certain level. i think on some base level, the body adapts to this training by generating a certain amount of "drive" that gets used up in training. during the taper, the body is still producing that "drive" but the training load has been reduced. the result, for me, is usually what i like to refer to as "mindless directionless energy" (with all due respect to The Damned).

when i was a teen, i remember having a tremendous amount of what i will call angst. i didn't know it at the time, but what was happening was that my body was growing out of control, both inside and out, and the testosterone levels were probably in high gear. the result was that i had a tremendous amount of energy. i sometimes used to go outside when nobody was home, and scream at the top of my lungs in the backyard. football was a perfect outlet for me because it afforded me the opportunity to burn a lot of that off in a semi-controlled environment. i really didn't care if my team won or lost, i really didn't even care about the games. i just liked being able to level people during the daily practices. again, with the benefit of hindsight, i had a huge amount of energy just boiling over and football practice was a perfect way to burn some of that off.

the taper feels pretty much like it did at that time, i just have energy oozing out of my pores.