Week in Review

87 miles
2 doubles
1 run in Sacramento
2 runs in Santa Rosa
1 run in San Jose
5 runs in Palm Springs

While many sensible people--including myself in most scenarios--wouldn't consider 87 miles to remotely resemble a taper, in reality it was. I only doubled twice and ran easy every day excluding Thursday's workout. Also, my long run was "only" a two-hour, 16+ mile jaunt with no uptempo sections. I also enjoyed at least 9+ hours of sleep per night (including some embarrassingly early bedtimes but hey, my body still thinks it's on the east coast) and plenty/too much good food and wine. So, believe it or not, this week was very much a step down from most in recent memory.

That said, next week I'm going to try my hardest to "only" run 75 miles. I'm pretty sure only fellow runners can understand that it will be much more difficult to limit my mileage than to increase it, but that's the beautiful, horrible paradox of the taper. We'll be catching a red-eye home on Tuesday night, unceremoniously thrust into what promises to be a frigid awakening contrasted against the blue skies and palm trees we've been enjoying in Palm Springs all week. I'll probably take advantage of the weather and pancake flat terrain with a short marathon-paced workout tomorrow, designed more as a confidence booster than a fitness provider. From then forward the remaining 10 days of training will primarily be an exercise in self-restraint and harnessing nervous energy. This is my least favorite part of the training cycle but probably also one of the most crucial for ensuring race-day success.

Over the past few days I've enjoyed reading fellow bloggers' "year in review" posts and have considered writing one myself. However the reality is, this entire year has been a build-up for the Trials, so it would be disingenuous of me to summarize the past 365 without acknowledging that as my focus. With that in mind, you'll have to wait until at least January 15th for my annual summary. In lieu of that, check out my interview with "Writing About Running" blogger Pat Porter. My 15 seconds of fame!

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve and a fantastic first day of 2012. Best of luck with all your training and racing goals!