Usually I do a two week taper which puts me into that classic itchy with a B mode but this plan calls for only a one week taper since it is a bare minimum plan after all. I was down with the taper but walked one of the runs because I had fun walking stuff to do that day okay? So two runs and a walk this week, plus you know the actual race and of course Terry Fox the day after. Some crazy lady even made me run sections of that one AKA my mom which was pretty unpleasant but she made me a super delicious post race supper and bought me a post race lunch so I’m gonna let it slide this time. Here’s how the last week went. PS I think I will do a post digging a little deeper into the whole bare minimum training experience vs the full meal deal but I need a bit more time for those thoughts to marinate yet. So here’s how the last week went!
Wednesday: I got up super early to go for my morning speedwork. I had been sleeping later than I should since being all floaty and married so getting up race day early was good for reseting my sleep clock for the week and I got up on time, or weirdly before for the rest of the week. That’s a pro tip I might take into my next training cycle too. Get up at race time to run in taper week! This one was meant to be at race pace and it pretty much turned out to be, only 4 seconds per km slower than the actual day. I also modified the outfit I planned to wear later in the day and had accepted that I wanted to not be the slowest ever but no records were going to fall either and looking cute was going to be a top priority. I was a little surprised on this one that I was as fast as I was, pleasantly surprised.
Friday: Running those splits. I do find that running splits does help with race day performance. On the level of a recreational athlete I’m not sure how you do it really matters. Splits are meant to be very, very short spurts of all out effort. With major recovery periods in between you want to go all out but not make yourself sore after. As soon as you start to feel your leg muscles, and you will, walk. Sometimes I worry that I’ll fall doing that so I often run them on the beach so If I do it won’t hurt as much. That evening something relatively minor was irritating me in a major way so I gave it my all on the road for about 200m at a time followed by 400 m of walking and panting. I have a few narcissistic running things I secretly like and I discovered a new one today. For example I like it when someone I know drives by me and waves at my furthest point of long running. Then they know how runnery I am and I know that they saw me. Today my second dad (sort of) in this hood saw me giving it my all on my very fastest spilt (ie the first one) and that was pretty great too! Does stuff like this give you a big head too? It’s sort of like the parts of life you post in instagram like it’s no big deal but IRL. All in all the splits went well and I hit that sweet spot between all out and no sore legs.
So that’s how my final week of training went and it’s all over for another year. But … I realized I’d love to squeeze in another half ideally at Valley Harvest, there IS a tractor on the medal after all. But I think we’re road tripping that weekend so stay tuned. Then I’d be one of those multiple halves a year type runners and wouldn’t that be cool? Post in the comments if you’re doing you’re 1/2 or full or whatever training along with me! You can download my bare minimum 1/2 marathon training plan here!
Sweat Sweetly 
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