First marathon this weekend, and I am struggling with tapering.
I’ve been averaging 10-12 hours a week for the last year doing a couple of sprint and oly distance tris, with a main goal this year of a half iron distance in Oct and my main overall goal of a full Ironman (Barcelona) next year… from where I started (18 stone couch potato) I feel like a different man…
This marathon however is the first time I have followed a real plan complete with a taper… and here is the point of this post.
I feel, grumpy, unfit and have gone from feeling really positive about the race to dreading it.
Is this normal? If so how the hell do you guys and gals deal?
Its normal. I’m sure your plan has you doing some form of a short intensity run during this period to keep primed. I don’t know if its a physical change during a taper or if its more psychological that causes these feelings, but I would lean on psychological. I mean training10 hours a week has probably become habit and typically when you break habit you experience angst. Trust the taper.
I had the same experience for the last marathon I had trained for as well. I felt like I was losing all my fitness and getting fat. I was anxious the whole week and become nervous or insecure about my potential performance, but once the gun went off I felt great and busted out a hefty PR. Granted the last marathon was in the mountains, but still. Your body will suprise you.
Yes, very normal, I assume because of endorphin withdrawal among other things. I hate taper for this exact reason. I struggle to sleep, I get irritable, and I feel sluggish in workouts. It should pass by race day, but as AlyraD said, hopefully you have some short runs with fast pickups to help get you past the funk. Good luck!
I feel, grumpy, unfit and have gone from feeling really positive about the race to dreading it.
Is this normal? If so how the hell do you guys and gals deal?
yeah… totally normal and super frustrating, at least for me. Make sure not to gorge on food (don’t know about others, but I tend to do that when I get bored).
Word of caution… I just royally screwed up a half marathon last weekend and I think it’s because I screwed up my taper. Even though I knew what to expect in terms of feeling like sluggish (happens to me every time) I think this time was worse than others so I actually skipped or significantly shortened my taper week workouts. I ended up running only about 15-20% of my regular mileage the week prior to the race and did very little intensity. On race day I just felt super flat. My legs had no spring in them and I got a really bad case of side stitch which never happens to me.
Yeah - that’s normal (x10).
Maybe use this time to sharpen your mental game, rehearse your plan, do wise things for your body.
Oh yeah, the day after the your marathon, if you have truly invested in the prep. and the execution, you are likely going to feel like your life has no meaning. That’s normal too.
I’m awful at tapering. I feel the same way you do. It just highlights the fact that regular training greatly impacts the daily outlook for an endurance athlete. During taper week I swim a good bit to keep feeling fit but let the legs rest.
Thanks all… 3:48 but finished strong and nailed my target pace.
wooohoo! way to go!
Now I need to work HARD on the bike so I can do that at the end of an IM distance.
but rest up first and feel like you’ve had some sort of workout vacation.
My tapers are really bad. I get dizzy while getting up, and feel weak. Then on race day all the fitness comes back. This is for real tapers that last over a week, going into an IM. A couple or three days of easy activity before a shorter race I don’t care much about are not like that.