The Taper Crazies Have Come Early to Find Me!!!!

Let’s see…

Mysterious aches and pains? Check.
Blinding hunger despite a cutback in mileage? Check.
Referencing everything to BCIM (Before CIM) and ACIM (After CIM)? Check.
Paranoia about germs and sickness? Check.
Convinced the cutback in volume is getting me out of shape? Check.
Getting obsessive about pace bands and various calculators? Check.
Rough time sleeping? Check.
Seeing a Jack Daniels label makes you think of running and not booze? Check.

Sounds like I’m right on track. I wasn’t sore at all after my last long run but this morning I woke up with some serious tightness on my right side starting at my glute and extending through my entire IT Band/quad area. I’m rolling and stretching but because I’m tapering and apparently made of money (NOT!) I scheduled both a massage and an ART appointment. I’m sure my ART doc will laugh at me, poke around and send me out the door with “you’re not injured, just paranoid,” but that’s ok too. I’m only worried because the pain is more burning than sore so I just want to be careful. Also, paranoid.

I’m also starving. I think my body must be recovering or storing food for the winter or just used to eating a lot because I can’t stop eating. I’m eating healthy stuff but just a lot of it. For example, I ate breakfast this morning but got so hungry while I was drying my hair that I paused to eat a 2nd bowl of cereal (tip for the curly haired: pausing mid-blow dry=fuzzy hair and ponytail. Going back in after cereal doesn’t help– your hair day is ruined). I had salad for dinner last night (with meat, some nuts and beans, don’t worry, it was substantial) and had to go back for snacks twice. I brought a large lunch and I’m hoping that cures it.

For those of you running CIM, the Sacramento Bee (our paper) is doing a really neat blog leading up to the race. Sam McManis (the lifestyle/running/fun features writer) and Dan Weintraub (extremely well-respected political columnist, also writes for the NY Times) are blogging about their training and also doing an extended course tour with local superstar Tim Twietmeyer. You can find their writing here and I highly suggest checking it out. They’re both really great runners (Dan’s shooting for sub-3 and I think Sam is shooting for 3:10? I like how I act like I know them, I totally don’t) and it’s fun to obsess along with them. Sam’s on twitter for those of you who do that– @SamMcManis.They actually referenced my buddy Jack Daniels’ view of mental state during the taper with this fabulous quote this morning: “you start questioning every facet of your training, lifestyle, sanity and reasons for getting up in the morning.”

My running has been really boring the last couple of days. 4 easy yesterday and 5 easy this morning. I have no idea how slow or fast it was– didn’t take the garmin. Uninterested in my speed- I need to run easy and seeing those easy paces on the garmin makes me run harder than is smart. It is weird to be running such short distances in the morning! Prior to this week the shortest I had run before work in months was 6 or 7 miles and so it feels like cheating to only run 4 or 5. It’s super, super cold (39 when I started this morning!) so I’ve been wearing tights, long sleeves and gloves. I think I need to layer up though, I never warmed up this morning. Also, my booty gets so cold in tights– not sure why! I’ll take it over the heat though!

Ok that’s it. Oh, I got some CW-X compression tights I plan on reviewing. They weren’t free or anything, but they’re kind of  neat and highly technological. And since I love gadgets and these tights are basically a gadget, I’ll share.

Ok that’s it.