Tapering focus

Or, focus in tapering.

Got to remind myself to stay focused, during these two weeks of taper before Wineglass. First, last Friday, I stubbed my right little toe at home, while walking into the laundry room, right before Saturday's 8K race. (Fortunately, I routinely train in Vibram FiveFingers (VFF), and, with its own toe pocket, that little toe was pretty happy, throughout the entire race.) Then, on this morning's run, I took a skin-scraping tumble in the parking lot of the local high school. The run was a 6-miler, and I did the middle 3 on the brand new school track (very nice!). To get there on the way home, I ran across the school parking lot, and, somehow, my right shoe (VFF) got caught on something and fleetingly stuck, which resulted in the following you-know-it's-happening-but can't-do-anything-about-it sequence of scraping contacts with the concrete pavement: Left heel (hard), right hand, left hand, left wrist, left elbow, left hip, and, finally, a Judo roll onto the back. This morning was also the local town’s annual parade, which starts at the high school, and there were many people there in the parking lot assembling for the parade. So, my tumble was a rather public one! The sting from the scrapes will be mostly gone by tomorrow. The only thing that will take a few days to recover is the right toe, next to that stubbed little toe, which got a bit bruised in the tumble and now has joined its neighbor in the pre-race recovery ward. I think both should be fine by the time Wineglass starts.

What got me thinking about this is that, in all my years (decades) of running, I've never taken a fall like this during a run (just a handful of stumbles). That I was looking at the parade preparation and not completely paying attention to the run probably contributed to the tumble. But, I suspect something about the taper in general also was a factor. After 14 weeks of speed work, strides, hill repeats, tempo runs, and long runs, with weekly mileage increasing to over 60 just before tapering, there is, perhaps, a certain sense of having made it to the top and being able to cruise the rest of the way to the start line and, with that, a certain slackening from that total focus of the previous weeks leading up to the taper. The mind gets more easily distracted, not the least from thinking about the upcoming race, for which all these weeks of early morning training have been dedicated.

Lesson for me: Stay focused during taper and get to the start line healthy! And, don’t go barefoot around the house … nah, probably not; I’m a minimalist! :)