mad world, mad world

Taper madness. It's real. Really. Someone should study it. I thought I was going to escape it this time around since I was coming off an injury and wasn't sure how my running was going to go. Also, my last few races have been trying to GET to Boston. This one IS Boston.
Well I was wrong. I came down with TAPER MADNESS.
To keep the voices at at least a whisper, I went on a planning spree.
Loren and I planned 2 high point trips. First one is a early summer road trip hitting PA, MD, and WV. Bea gets to come on this one too! The next one is in early Sept, hitting NM and CO. I also hope to hit VT and NY since Loren has both of those already and they're easy enough to get from here.
I've also been thinking about another ironman. It's been 6 years since my last one. And I fully admit the sport has changed and gotten douchy. I try to ignore all of that because I'm a pretty good triathlete and I like it. I just ignore all the dick measuring. I'm also curious to see how I'd do after years of just focused running. I was trying to decide which race to do. Do I do something new? Do I go for a course I know? These things are crazy, you have to sign up A YEAR a head of time. As I was looking things over, I had an idea:
Next year marks 10 years since my first IM in Lake Placid. I got to thinking that might be the thing to do, return to the scene of the crime. Not only should I return to the scene, I should take the people with me who got me there in the first place. I shot off an email to my pals Les and Claudia. We all did LP together and it was a first for all of us. I shot off an email to them saying let's get the band back together and do a 10 year Lake Placid reunion. With in the hour, I got 2 replies, both saying yes.
I have insane friends.
Of course I'm getting ahead of myself, I still have to run this little race on Monday, but it is fun to plan.

singles

Last double digit day.

8 days left.

Let me go crazy on you.

First, the run. Easy recovery, 5 miles with 6x100.

Now, taper madness. It's here. At some point last night, the crazies crawled into my head big time. I blame the debate. I suddenly started thinking: I dont need to do this. In fact, I dont want to do this. Let's call the whole things off. Yea, I've trained for 18 weeks and gotten myself in good shape. So what? I dont feel like racing. I dont even LIKE Boston (ok, that part holds the most truth. I really dont like Boston). I guess this is typical. Honestly, I dont know why I keep running marathons.

When I did my first one in 1999, I thought, ok, I'll get this outa the way.

I've done one every year since*

*(I didn't finish last years, but I got one in within the first week of this year).

Anyway, I am trying to ignore the taper gremlins. 

So here's what I do during taper madness:

• Check the forcast

•Check it again

• talk to it and tell it what I really want

• review splits from last marathon

•promise self not to go out too fast.

again.

•look at others splits, see they went out to fast

•promise self not to go out too fast.

again.

•remember if I think I'm starting too slow, chances are I'm starting too fast

•wonder why the hell I picked this race

•over all freak out over everything.

So tomorrow is my last long run, I'm doing Grete's Great Gallop in Central Park, a half marathon, as a long run. Good thing too, I have never run this race well so being intentionally slow, I'll keep with tradition.

And now time to hit the showers.