Ye Olde Haunts

Yesterday I was in a pretty unique position. It was the first cross training day of the taper week 1, the weather was decent—though slightly chilly—and I had errands to run; which really equates to giving me a reason to go out with Schwinny Cooper. So I took a leisurely foot to a half broken pedal and set out about the town. I immediately grew nostalgic for the streets I have spent so many cold winter weeks pounding & puffing through in the past 16 weeks. I rode through Oreland, my hometown, the town I've spent the majority of my life in, and then headed over to Flourtown—a favorite area for skating back in the day—and breezed back through Erdenheim, a place I had lived briefly in high school, until I circled back through North Hills, and found myself once again back in O-town. It was a good ride. My legs felt heavy at the hilliest points, but I chalk that up, like an outline of a body in a seedy motel parking lot, to the 12 mile LSD I had done the day before. While 12 miles isn't that big of a deal anymore, it still tires out the legs something fierce. When I got home I google mapped my ride to find something I probably should have realized long before now, but it just didn't hit me until that moment; my life, has been neatly contained in less than a 12 mile perimeter, that exists on the outskirts of Philadelphia. I could run 2 laps around the borders of existence as I know it, and that still would not be a full marathon. And here we are, by all accounts, about to break the boundaries.

Today was meant to be a rest day. If you look at the Higdon schedule for any given week, you'll see Mondays & Fridays are primarily rest days. Ah, sweet sweet Mondays & Fridays! But this isn't a normal week by any means: I leave for Japan in less than 24 hours. Part of what I like about the Higdon schedule is its flexibility. Higgy Stardust certainly knows that marathon training is not an easy undertaking, even for someone as seasoned as himself, it is time consuming, as well as physically & mentally draining (though, I must also say there is something exhilarating about pushing yourself farther than you've ever gone before, and finding there's a new, stronger, side of said self way out there). So, instead of resting, I swapped out tomorrow's 5 miler for today's rest day. This was my last run on US soil before the marathon; unless of course I find myself restless at 3am tonight, terrified of the flight ahead of me, and just go for a pre-dawn jog to settle my nerves. I couldn't have really asked for a better day though: it's 58°F, sunny, and just generally uplifting. I ran in shorts outside for the first time in months! That's always a sign of good weather. The only downside is that my Nike+ has already died on me. I don't know why, maybe it's not meant for marathon training, but if it doesn't hold up to constant running, who would really bother buying it? I'm also pretty certain the thing never kept accurate track of my distance, because google maps often gave entirely different estimates. It's kinda too late to do anything about it, so I'll probably just end up shelling out the yen for another one when I arrive in the land of the rising sun. But it's truly a bummer, especially when I face the unfamiliar streets of Nippon for my taper week 2 runs; I'll simply have no idea how far I've gone, unless I find a nice park to pounce, like Tigger, around in.

Also, I can attest, first hand, to the warnings that Hal Higdon repeatedly emphasizes in his 2 week taper schedule prior to the BIG race day: the drop in miles seems very significant, especially after 15 weeks of racking up the miles like Steve Wiebe racks up points for the high score in Donkey Kong, and one immediately begins trying to compensate, whether by running faster, or looking for that extra mile to squeeze in there somewhere along a route that is meant to be a low mile run. I hate it. I really feel like I'm cheating myself out of valuable training days, but I have to reason that Higdon knows what he's talking about, and he wouldn't steer me wrong at this point. Essentially my training is over at this point, what's left, after that 20 mile precipice, is a waiting game. So it's best to listen to Higdon. I'd rather not take unnecessary risks with just under 2 weeks left, which means listening to reason, as opposed to my gut reaction cranking out more miles. The idea now is to keep your muscles loose, give them a nice little respite before the shock and awe of 26.2 descends upon them like winged monkeys tearing the Scarecrow apart in The Wizard of Oz. Hold on to your ruby slippers boys & girls, we have a bit of a journey still ahead of us, and sure, while there's no place like home, home doesn't necessarily have to be a place to begin with, it can easily be a concept you keep close to heart.