Mini Taper, Taper and Races

So I'm now in taper for two races. A mini taper for the Beach To Chowder Half Marathon on Saturday the 13th. And a full taper for Rock and Roll Seattle on June 27th.

I'm playing both tapers by ear, just like I have the training plan for RnR Seattle.

This was a down week anyway, so I just dropped my midweek a bit further to 6 instead of 8 or 10, and am going to not do legs on my Thursday workout. Hopefully that will be enough to keep me reasonably fresh.

I've decided that since I haven't run a half yet, I'm going to have some fun and be more aggressive than my 75% HR training. Since I can reasonably predict my performance at that HR, I'm going to try to 'race' this and see what I can do. The worst case is I end up walking. :)

Current plan is to start at a HR of 152 (just over 81% MHR), since I've run up to 18 miles at that, and then see how that feels. Runners World recommends a HR range of 85-88% (159-165 MHR for me) for half marathon pacing, but given my lower Lactate Threshold, and the fact that I've done absolutely no speed work, 152 is probably a same place to start. :) If I feel OK, I'll try to inch it up the last half of the race or so.

Goals:
This weeks weekly average is 10:20 a mile. Which works out to 2:15:28.

10:00/mile == 2:11:06

My half marathon split from Seattle was supposedly 2:05:21 or 9:35/mile.

10 point difference in HR when I dropped was worth about 1:20/mile. If that holds true then, 9:00/mile == 1:57:59.

1:50:00 is just over 8:23/mile

Using last year's 10K (48:30)(which is in no way a sane comparison), McMillan says I'm capable of a 1:47:55 (8:15/mile). Probably insane. That same comparison (which I used before Seattle said I was capable of a 3:47:36 marathon (not so much...)

That 14:19 two mile time trial I did plugged into McMillan says 1:47:26 (8:12/mile).

So:
It's essentially a dead flat course so I think some of these might be achievable. :)

Acceptable: Finish. Preferably at 10:20 pace or better == 2:15:28.
Real Goal: 9:00 pace == 1:57:59.
Pie in the Sky: 8:23/mile == 1:50:00.
Holy Crap: 8:12/mile == 1:47:26

And in regards to the big taper, I'm still undecided how much I'll run on Sunday. Last week was ~56 miles, so a 25% down would be 42. 18 during the week, around 15 between warmup, race, and cooldown == 33. So maybe 10ish to keep in line with a down week.

Next week is when I kind of lose my mind on the taper. It's the week before the marathon, but I've not been doing any 'hard' workouts, Eric's recommendation was to catch the marathon on the first week of an 'up', which is not really going to work. the biggest complication is that I leave Sunday the 21st for a week of training in Denver.

So, as I type this, I think that I'll just make next week another 75% ('down') week at 42ish. 6, 12, 6 during the week, 12 on Saturday before I leave, and that would leave 8 on Sunday after I get in. Seems reasonably sane.

I think I'll move things around during the training week since I seem to perform better if I've run the day before so I think 6, 12 on Tues, Wed, and move the next 6 to Friday before the race.

We'll see how badly a flight that gets in at 10pm, before a 7am race start, where I have to get there early to pick up my packet (and shirt? hmmm.. I wonder if I'm going to miss out on the race shirt.) I'm going to try to get a hotel near the start, so I don't have to drive 45-60 minutes home and then back.

Race strategy is simple. Run at my 143 bpm training pace (per Eric's advice) and finish. If I feel really good in the last 6 miles I might let it drift up to 152 depending on how things look after the half, but probably not. I'm really hoping for another 6 week development cycle drop (6 weeks end while I'm in Denver) so I can have a decent difference between Seattle's time. We shall see.

Got my Registration, confirmation and bib number. Nice binary bib number. 10010. :)