Seven Days of Taper Trauma: Hypochondriacism (Day 5)

Golden Rule of Taper: Thou shalt stock your cubicle with more vitamins and pills than a drugstore aisle holds in order to avoid getting sick.

Look up hypochondriacism in the dictionary and here's what you get: Excessive concern and conversation about one’s health. That's me, right there, right now. Last night my husband made a noise in the other room and I froze in fear. "Did you just cough??!" I yelled to him. Umm, no, he had dropped a shampoo bottle. Mental case, much?

My boss is sick--his office is about 30 feet from my cubicle and I can hear him coughing, sneezing and sniffling throughout the day. My cube mate was out of the office with the flu for two days last week. And last night, when I reached down to pick up a crumpled piece of paper in my office hallway (good samaratin that I am) I recoiled instantly: It was a wadded up, used tissue. Lovely. I remember how my friend Nate got sick before running Chicago this fall. Not. fun. I'm OCD with anxiety about falling victim to a similar fate.

Anyway, I went to bed last night with a scratchy throat (I think). I did not sleep well last night. I woke up feeling okay. But my throat still seems a little weird--like I'm catching something. I walked into work this morning and sorta coughed/ cleared my throat. "Oh no!" my boos cried from his office, "You sound sick! Did I get you sick? Oh no, Liz!" It was not what I needed to hear.

So, I just blew $20 at Walgreens on Zicam (my boss swears by it at the first sign of a cold...then again, he's as pale as a ghost and should be home getting well!), Airborne and AlkaSeltzer. I've already been washing my hands so much they're raw, taking E-boost, Vitamin C and a multi-vitamin.

My throat feels scratchy. 

Photo grabbed from e-MagineArt.com at flickr. Posted by Liz.

Seven Days of Taper Trauma: Weather Worries (Day Three)

Golden Rule of Taper: Thou shalt not visit accuweather.com more times than the bathroom on any day.

It's no secret that Kate and I are obsessed with the weather. Between 2009's brutally cold and icy winter and a very dreary, rainy spring, it's given us plenty to talk about over the past few months. But take that obsession up about—ooooh, a million—notches and you've got a glimpse of my current mental state. The Boston weather forecast is bookmarked in my browser. It's a cruel, cruel game, too. Because the weather will likely change another dozen times before Monday morning...and if I continue to click on the link, I will ride every painful high and low. It may be very windy! It may be very hot! It may be very cold! Yes, it may totally suck out there! And so what? I'll be running no matter what.

The funny thing is that when I ran my first marathon in 2002 (Vermont City), I remember waking up to a cool, almost-drizzly day. "Darn," I thought, "It's kinda gross and chilly out, I wish it was sunny and warmer." Ha! Little did I know how PERFECT that spring day was for a 26.2 mile run. I've learned since then. I suffered through the brutal 88 degree temps of Boston in 2004--which Kate documented in her awesome Boston Forecasting post--and I still have the dehydration demons haunting me to prove it. And I watched the poor, poor Chicagoans endure sizzling hot, sunny days in 2007 and 2008.

I wish there was weather karma. If you had really brutal weather in your training season or if the last time you ran a course then Mother Nature would automatically toss you a bone and promise you a beautiful, cool, but not at all windy day. But that's not how it works. So, here goes: I'm officially deleting weather.com and accuweather.com from my Bookmarks page. Who's with me? Photo grabbed from Posted by Liz

Seven Days of Taper Trauma: Heavy Legs (Day Two)

Golden Rule of Taper: Thou shalt not run too fast, nor too slow.

There is a lot of science out there regarding the benefits of chillaxing before a marathon to let your muscles repair themselves from months of tearing them down via speed sessions, hill repeats, tempo workouts and long runs. The consensus seems to be that, yes, tapering helps athletes perform better on race day. But, say the experts, it's also possible to be too lazy during the taper. Everyone (and every coach) has a unique strategy and idea of what works best--which makes sense since every athlete has had a unique training build-up and a unique reaction to hard and easy efforts--but the goal for all of us is rest and recover without getting rusty. So, athletes do what works best for them: They run some pick-ups, do a hard mile here and there...whatever it takes to shake off the cobwebs and remind their legs that they're speedy and light and fast.

So what should you think if your legs feel heavy, sluggy, slow and blah during those "easy, breezy, mac & cheesy" runs of tapering? You have a taper freak-out, my friends. Thankfully, RW has pinpointed this as another common taper "trap." And I'm happy to see it, because, quite honestly, I feel like an FBI agent constantly and covertly monitoring my body's every twitch and creak at this point. So when I hit the road for some slow running interspersed with pick-ups--like I did this morning--and none of it feels easy or light or fun...that's scary. Yes, hellooooo taper trauma.

A little blame, I think, goes to this frustrating Chicago weather. As Kate pointed out in our reader poll earlier this week, the weather can really put the brakes on your workout plans or execution. I trotted out wearing a fleece vest and windbreaker, plus gloves and a headband this a.m. and was greeted by 25mph gusts of wind along the lakefront and spitting rain. So, it sucked feeling slow and never really getting to dig into a pick-up, but on the upside, it did make me feel tough and hardcore. Yeaaaaah, we live in Chicago; we battle the elements!!! Except...it's one thing to feel tough in a training run, it's quite another to actually have to be tough on marathon day. What if it's hot...or windy like today...or freezing? Eeek, I'll save that meltdown for tomorrow. Posted by Liz