Final Set of Runs

Monday night I went to the gym and did my 4.25 miles at around 6.2 mph, which is a nice little improvement in speed. I wasn’t exhausted afterwards, either, which is good news for the race on Saturday. I think that if I keep my legs fresh, I can push it on Saturday and really improve my time. To that end, I am doing a tempo run this evening and then will see what Thursday offers. Annie and I are going out to Bel Air on Thursday evening so if I want to hit the gym, I may have to get up early and do it before work. I think that would be the best option, mainly because I want to use Friday as a shortened taper period to rest my legs and ensure they’re fresh for the race but I also don’t want to take two days off from running beforehand.

While I have yet to run a race that is long enough and demanding enough to merit a true “taper” period, I have come to the realization that one should not really need to taper in preparation for a 5K. I know that many experts who have run like 4500 marathons say otherwise, but I think they’re not completely correct. More to the point, I think that for older runners or less fit runners, etc, they’re right. However, for 25 year olds with a decent level of fitness, I don’t think tapering for a 5K is needed. In fact, I would argue that it can actually hurt your chances of running your best. If you’re already running 3-4 miles, or more, several times a week, running 3.1 miles at race pace should not be so taxing as to necessitate anything beyond taking the day before off and maybe the day after for good measure.

Anyway, I want to take Friday off to rest the legs for Saturday, which means finding some time to run tomorrow, either before work or after we get back from our errands. Looks like an early day tomorrow.

I didn’t go to the gym yesterday for several reasons. First of all, we had a fire drill yesterday afternoon and the entire building was evacuated. For those of you not familiar with downtown Baltimore, the building I work in is 34 stories tall and I work on Floor 21. Not too bad, but going down 21 flights of stairs gives your legs a punishing without you knowing it. However, I could have gone running without any problems, really. But the drill put me further behind during a day when I was already running 2 hours late. So I decided to nix the gym in favor of staying at work later to get some more stuff done. As a result, I must go running tonight.