Run 78, 2009 …taper time, I guess…

Many of you already know this, but for those who don’t, it bears repeating here. The main purpose of a taper before a race is to allow you to rest up and heal from a hard training period. That way you are in your peak physical condition right at race time. If you think you’d rather get that last long run in here’s a little tip that I have read in various places: You won’t see any benefit from any training for at least two weeks. So if you have less than two weeks left before a race, don’t think that speed work or an extra fast long run will help you now, on the contrary it will just serve to delay your healing and possibly even be detrimental to your race day efforts. Hence, experience sports people invented the taper.

Which is what I’m doing right now. I went out today for a slow 8 km, and that will be my last run before the half marathon Oct. 12. Karate training will be quite enough thank you very much. I attended my first class since the summer/fall break yesterday and I am still surprised at how sore I am no matter how many times I go through this and even though I already know that training is activity specific. Although I never stopped running, I am so sore (especially my hamstrings) from the intense body work and leg work that is karate training. I am sore even though I only managed to do one hour, sitting out the second hour of class because my whiplash injury still isn’t quite healed yet and my shoulder/neck muscles get tired too soon.

I really happy it was just a minor injury. Anyway, I stopped to take some pictures in today’s run to illustrate that winter’s coming and this is where I do the trail portion of my runs. It was a very cold day, cold enough for me to get dressed up. I’m too lazy to put in picture captions, but I think I don’t need them. They speak for themselves. So I’ve attached all the pictures I took today below: