Week 14 – Marathon Musings: All About Control
For me, taper means more time for yoga. It isn't just about stretching, but about getting my mind and body on the same bandwidth: relaxed and ready.
Welcome to the part of marathon training where we taper, a.k.a. start to stress about the things we shouldn’t be stressing about because we don’t know what to do with all the extra time we have now that we aren’t running as many miles. So, more time off-the-run equals more time to think about all the things that can impact the run. The point of tapering (reducing mileage and intensity) before race day includes giving your body time to adapt to all the training gains, reducing muscle and mental fatigue from weeks of focused training, and granting yourself the time to celebrate weeks of hard work. Tapering is a time to focus on resting and getting our minds ready to race. This is the point in marathon training where we do our best to control what can be controlled and let go of the rest.
With Chicago less than 3 weeks out, it’s not helpful to look back at the training cycle and think of what I could have done differently; there’s no time machine to take me back and there’s not enough time to make big shifts in training before race day. Instead, this is the time to think about all that I was able to accomplish with the body that I had, the life that I had, and the mental load that I had over the past 4-ish months. I know it isn’t easy, especially as an overthinker, to not think about the “what ifs” of the future (like the weather and/or trying to squeeze in a last-minute hard workout), but it’s necessary for recovery during the special taper period of marathon training.
Worrying takes energy and, when I worry, I am worrying about an unknown future that has no guarantee of actually happening. What’s more, worrying makes me feel stuck and it’s exhausting! The solution? Turn that “Worry Energy” into “What Can I Control Energy.”
In focusing on what I can control, I stay focused on what I can do right now to better prepare me for race day.
Tapering is a period of reflection and of preparation. I look back to appreciate the process and I look forward to prepare for the journey of start line to finish line. I’ve spent months training my body and mind to run a marathon and now is the time for allowing all that hard work to take root so I can bloom and shine on race day.
Marathon History:
2014 Chicago Marathon
2015 Miami Marathon
2015 Berlin Marathon
2015 Chicago Marathon
2016 Chicago Marathon
2016 NYC Marathon
2017 Chicago Marathon
2018 Chicago Marathon
2021 Chicago Marathon
2023 London Marathon
2023 Marine Corps Marathon
Marathon Musings series:
14 weeks of musing written and I’m here wondering where all that time went. The countdown is on!
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