taper tantrums

welp, at this point...what do they say?
"the hay is in the barn"

i have found myself in the infamous taper time before the big goal trail race of the year - aka hardest thing i ever signed up to put my body through...but who’s counting? two weeks out, and it’s time to taper, to cut back on training volume so my body can feel fresh and primed for the big day.

cue taper tantrums.
not a new or novel phenomenon, these tantrums look like jittery energy, mental unease, angsty over-analysis - a bit like an awkward puppy in a growth spurt, bumping into furniture, trying to cage the zoomies - mentally and physically. the endurance athlete has put in hours, weeks, months of training, building in time and intensity with eyes set on the big goal, and then it all seemingly comes to a halt. right when the anticipatory energy is climbing at the steepest rate - comes rest?

for many who endeavor to undertake endurance events and efforts, they got there because it often was at some level a coping strategy or stress relief or “happy place,” which then increasingly grew and grew in time and distance, chasing the next challenge or high. so tapering back for a couple weeks is no easy thing, especially as the goal event looms close - seems like the exact opposite of preparation. i am about to ask for the highest demand on my body, and yet, i can’t help but feel lazy with a trimmed down training protocol and you've cut away large swaths of my go-to stress relieve strategy. on top of the adjustment in physical output is the increased margin for mental analysis - have i done enough? can i do this? is that niggle actually sign of an impending major injury? what will the weather be like? is my nutrition optimized? what if…..?

but the taper serves as the physiological and psychological priming that is needed for the engine to run most efficient on the target day. this is the time to fill the tank and do the systems check. it’s the sacrifice of the physical progress at the service of the unseen growth and health. what feels counterproductive is in fact productive at a deeper level.

physiologically, reducing training volume allows for the intended adaptations of the training to actually occur. the muscles rebuild, the niggles have time to be repaired, the recovery tanks topped off, the restoration to new levels of fitness can be consolidated. after all, the last thing you want to feel waking up for the big event is sore or depleted - i’d rather give my body the best chance it’s got to have a great day. days of striving and straining turn into restoration and recovery.

the psychological priming is often overlooked but a key component to the 1-2 punch of taper time. while the physical muscles rest, the mental muscles dial in to their peak training cycle.

this is the best time to revisit my ‘why’, re-establish my definition of success, and remember my worth - all before toeing the line on race day. over the past many months, if the straining and achieving and ticking off miles became my definition of success or tangible productivity, taking that away feels sticky and hard. striving got really comfortable. soreness and fatigue was a tangible reminder that i did something the day before. now when things slow - what do the narratives sound like? what voices rise to the surface with nothing to tamp them down? insecurity, anxiety, worry, fear, overanalyzing, rationalizing? the thing about endurance events is that i will spend plenty of time in my head, often to ever deepening levels, and the last thing i need is to be accompanied by these voices on race day. so the taper is the invite to learn to cultivate an internal comfort and calm, dust off and sweep the cobwebs out of the mental cave, so it doesn’t scare me when i enter on race day. perhaps i can do some interior decorating. the pain cave can be a reminder of where my identity really lies, gratitude for how far i’ve come, and perhaps contain a tinge of nostalgia that i’ve been to hard before - visited previous iterations of this - and came out the other side. every time i’ve swiped the key-card access to the pain cave, i’ve come out stronger or found a new learning on the shelf. this is an easier feat if i’ve done my spring cleaning and decluttering before arrival.

trust the training.
trust the tapering.
then i can toe the line.

mental headspace: identity established. success defined. worth confirmed.

pain cave: remodel complete. security clearance granted. guest list confirmed.

come back to gratitude, so that the preparation can give way to play.

“do the work, put in the hours and the suffering, leave nothing to chance and when the moment of truth presents itself you can feel confident that “the hay is in the barn” and there is nothing left to do but get out of the way and let greatness happen.”

- john welbourn (https://talktomejohnnie.com/the-hay-is-in-the-barn/)