Tapery

First day of proper taper today. Luverly. I would love to say that I had oodles of sleep and woke up this morning feel fresh, vital and ready to race. But that would be a lie.

I mentioned yesterday that we were still planning on having an early night since our son has a frustrating habit of waking up early. Well this morning was no exception. Doesn't matter what time you go to bed, 4:00am is early. As a result I spent the first part of this morning in a bit of a zombie state. In fact the only reason I am no longer in that state is almost entirely due to caffeine. My wife pointed out that you know it has been a bad night when on the drive into work you are already talking about going to bed.

Still another night and another chance to try and get some sleep. So that is what tonight is about. The main difference is that I have some training in the morning so I will be waking up early, son or not. The plan is to try and go to bed as early as physically possible. Well possibly not quite that early, we have a rule about not going to bed before sunset. But 8:30 is definitely on the agenda.

Tomorrow I have a fairly normal day of training except just a bit shorter and a bit less intense. Everything that I have read has said that the best way to taper is to not cut back on the number of sessions but to simply cut back on the length and intensity of those sessions. Similar number of sessions to normal, just less volume. That certainly seems to be the school of thought that Daryl comes from and it has always agreed with me. My body does not like a cold turkey taper, it needs to keep moving. So with that in mind I have a bit of a spin on the bike in the morning. Nothing intense, just a spin. I will be taking out the race bike with all the fancy bits on it though. Since I ended up doing my brick on the trainer (as per my program) I haven't had a test spin on the bike yet and so that will happen in the morning. Just to make sure it all works the way it is supposed to. It will mean heading out on a disc, but moving into Triathlon season in WA that isn't actually as unusual a sight as you might think.

I hate feeling average on a taper since it messes with your head. At a time when you are expecting that you should start to feel wonderful you feel rubbish instead. I know at the moment that I have only just started my taper and everything that I am feeling is lack of sleep related. But still I am looking forward to getting some sleep tonight and getting started on the feeling good bit.