Another Taper Bites the Dust

I was really good about preparing for tests throughout elementary, middle, high school, but my first two years of college I was queen of cram. It was likely the product of subject apathy (I switched from chemistry to biology to psychology to philosophy to computer science by the end of my sophomore year) and probably didn't yield the best results.

But those first two years did teach me precisely what not to do, which yielded great results the final three years of school and eventually grad school.

Let's hope the same goes for running.

For the second year in a row, I'm all but laid up for my taper leading into Akron. Some serious Iliotibial band ouches (which, in my opinion, is the much better IBS to have) slowed down my miles for the past several distance weeks and stopped me in my tracks on Saturday.

I ran four fast miles on Wednesday (I gave myself a couple days rest once the non-running pain really began) and rested Thursday and Friday. By Saturday morning, my body felt kind of stiff and rusty, so even getting started on what should have been a 10-miler was rough.

So, I took to a barely running pace down the street, where I heard and then saw E*Speed. I was so not with it, swearing to myself about why I do these things to myself, that it took me forever to realize who was saying hi and from where!

It's always a boost, though, to see people you know on the run, and I was pleasantly distracted for at least the next half mile.

Stiffer than usual or not, it almost always takes me 20 minutes to loosen and warm up. After 25 minutes on this run, however, I still felt like crap. I stopped to stretch again and rub-warm my legs to no avail. In fact, I felt tighter with each passing stride. And as my muscles, joint, tendons, thoughts grew tighter, my i-band felt worse and worse. Then the knee pain kicked in. Blah!

Another 10 minute push to see if it would warm away just made it worse. And bad enough that it even hurt to walk the rest of the way home.

Good news is that after some stretching and some rest, nothing hurts in non-running mode. So, I'll stick with my non-running routines, resting and walking between now and Thursday. Then I'll take my last jog and hope for the best on Saturday.

I'll also be plotting out how to make it to Akron next year without missing my taper. Because I miss my taper. But another one's gone...