The Forced Taper...

i'm bumming.

my philly half marathon is in less than two weeks. i'm not where i want to be in terms of training in order to hit my goal time of 1:41. i'm more looking at a 1:45 pace right now. ugly.

so i have been going back and forth on whether to taper my training or not. there are advantages to tapering, virtually everything i've read suggests tapering except kevin hanson of the hanson brooks distance project. but i feel like i tapered too much in the weeks before indy. so, i figured over the weekend that i would go for 30 miles this week and about 20 next week leading up to the race. so just a real modest taper.

this morning my quad felt really tight. i stretched it out and decided to still go about my workout. 10 miles with 5 (1 minute) hill repeats at mile 3. probably not the best move. at mile four my right quad was signaling that it just had it. i stepped off, tried to stretch it out and got in about another quarter mile before i could feel something was way off.

so now, what, 13 days before the race I really have no idea what i'm looking at. and i'm icing my quad and gonna attempt to get out for a sixer tomorrow morning before work. but really, wtf? it's a tough call.

regardless, now against wishes i taper. at the end of the day it's better to listen to your body i'm sure. but mentally this is not the shit i wanted to deal with 2 weeks before the race.