Tapered, Rested and Ready (or not)...Here I Come Boise!



The usually deep blue Colorado sky is hazy steel blue thanks to smoke from the Arizona wildfires. From left: E Rock 2011 crew: me, Troy Lewis, Craig Yenni and Dan Hettinger

 I have never been very good at tapering. The idea that you should reduce your workouts in the final 1-3 weeks prior to your big event of the season just seems fundamentally wrong to me. I always feel like I should keep swimming, biking and running up until the last day. But this week I was forced to taper by a confluence of events called weather and work.

I scheduled the Elephant Rock 62-mile ride as my last long workout one week before the Ironman Boise 70.3 triathlon, my big event for this summer. Is one week a long enough taper? I don't know. I've run my two fastest half marathon times last year after doing my last long run one week out. It seems to work for me. But some schools of thought say longer endurance events should be preceded by longer tapering periods.

Regardless, I rode in my third straight Elephant Rock with a group of strong riders and had a great time. The bigger question in mind is whether it was smart to ride 62 miles in a haze of smoke blowing up the Front Range of the Rockies from the Wallow wildfire in Arizona! I woke up Monday morning completely congested and have been sidelined all week from either the lingering effects of the smoke, allergies or a summer cold. Whichever, it was tough to skip the Dip and Dash (open water swim and run) I had planned to do Tuesday evening.

So here I sit at the airport in Denver waiting for my flight to Boise. I haven't run or swam in over a week or elevated my heart rate since Sunday. Guess we'll see how this whole tapering thing works when you take it to the extreme! Stay tuned for updates from Idaho.

Ride on!

Daren