Taper Pains and Gains

Monday complete rest
Tuesday RUN 7 miles in 63 mins, bike commute
Wednesday BIKE 18 miles in 60 mins, bike commute
Thursday RUN 6.6 miles in 53:08, bike commute
Friday (hasn't happened yet! A swim maybe?)

I think I'm past the taper pains--those random aches and muscle twinges that come with the taper. As I understand them, in part they are due to muscles loosening up, with some muscles doing so at different rates as a neighboring muscle, thereby causing imbalances and problems. They came and went fast last week.

Now I'm in the taper gains phase. LOTS of energy, ideas, plans, urges to train. Today's FP group run was fast and easy, I definitely had another gear if I had wanted it. I was keeping up with DC! Although admittedly I don't think I had much of a gear remaining, but who knows?!

On Tuesday I learned that B2B is actually ON my birthday in 2014, so that will be my Birthday Iron! How selfish :) "Happy Birthday to me! 9 months of training!"

I'm having doubts about 3DoS. It would mean I'm training steady through the winter into the spring, recovering, then jumping into 140.6 training. It would also mean I'd need to cross train through the early 2014 months in order to get a jump on it and not be a ground zero come April. As I'm learning right now, when the peak and taper arrive, even though there's time, need, and benefit to cross training I don't get it done. So if I'm increasing my running even more to train for 3DoS, that means I'm subtracting even further from full tri training.

That and the rocks. I keep hearing about rocks on the course. My ankles are protesting the idea.

I have big goals for next year, do I really need 3DoS to round that out? I want to do a 5K OWS, a gravel grinder, 2 140.6 distance tris, there will likely be a few 70.3 prep races...I really need to think about this.

But at the same time, I want to do 3DoS because I want to see if I can, because I don't think I can.