Back to the Marcy Field track to run intervals. I made a few changes to my normal Tuesday workout to account for the fact that I'm tapering: Normally I'd run strength intervals (half-marathon pace) for a total of 6 hard miles, but today I planned to do only 4 hard miles. I also planned fewer warmup and cool down miles to keep the daily total low.

I've had lingering soreness in my right knee for over a month now. It goes away after a mile or so of warmup and hasn't affected me outside of running, but lately it has been bothering me throughout the day and more often during runs. I figure this taper week is a good time to see if I can let it heal some, so I made a few other changes to today's workout:

1) Drove to Marcy Field and did my warmup and cool down on the dirt path, rather than running 2mi on the road.
2) Wore my trail running shoes, which are more cushioned than the XC flats I normally use for track workouts.
3) Ran the intervals at MP rather than HM pace, which is probably better anyway as it's more specific to Patch Sprint.

Warmup: 1.7mi easy trail.
Drills: Half-assed drills and 2 moderate strides (didn't want to aggravate the knee with drills).
Intervals: Two 2mi intervals at 6:15 pace with 800m of easy running after both repeats.
Cooldown: 0.7mi easy trail.

Hopefully the knee improves this week as I taper so that I can get back to hard training immediately after Patch Sprint. Aside from that, I think this last-minute modification resulted in a better taper workout than I had planned. It was more specific to the race (MP, trail runners) and easier, which is never a bad thing when tapering.

Total Miles: 7.5mi
Weekly So Far: 10.5mi

Total Mileage: 50mi
Elevation Gain: 5200'
Cross-Training: 10mi
Goal: Maintain peak fitness for Patch Sprint next Saturday.

Peaking is a difficult art. You're walking a fine line, trying to run your max mileage and hardest workouts without overdoing it, getting sick, or causing injury. My four previous weeks were peak weeks: I ran every day but one, averaging 59mi and 6800' of climbing including three hard workouts per week. It felt great.

This past week was much harder. I didn't want to taper for two full weeks, nor did I want to run as hard as I had during my peak, so I had to do something in between. I didn't cut back enough to make me feel fresh and ready to race, but I did cut back on both mileage and intensity and was surprised to find that toward the end of the week I was feeling more tired than I had during my peak training weeks. I think this is OK--my body is telling me it's time to rest just when I should be resting according to my race schedule--but it's not a great feeling mentally.

Looking Ahead: The Patch Sprint is next Saturday, so this is the time to taper. Assuming I feel good I'll run one more strength workout on the track on Tuesday, cutting the fast miles to 4 rather than the usual 6, and I'll mix a few hard pickups into my Thursday run, but otherwise I'll be running easy and short. More importantly I'll try to eat well (healthy foods, not too much, mostly carbs from Wednesday on) and get plenty of sleep.

A video of the BEAST series race on Thursday, starring Jim Kobak's butt.

My name is Jan (pronounced "yahn") Wellford. I moved to Keene Valley, NY in 2003 with my wife Meg to live, work and play in the beautiful Adirondack mountains. As an avid hiker, climber and skier I found the perfect job at The Mountaineer, a local outdoor retail store. We had a free place to live with little responsibility as assistant innkeepers at the Keene Valley Lodge, and I was able to spend almost all of my free time in the mountains.

I took up trail running not long after coming to the area, and in 2007 I was inspired to enter several trail races by the Dean Karnazes book Ultramarathon Man. 2008 through early 2010 found me back in the mountains, focusing on speed hiking and setting records for hiking the Adirondack High Peaks supported and unsupported and the Catskills 3500' peaks unsupported, with a couple months off in between to recover from a broken pelvis. I raced some more in 2010 including two attempts at 100-mile ultras, neither of which I finished, and also spent a lot of time in the mountains as I caught the FKT (fastest known time) bug.

After many years of living the "mountain lifestyle" we decided to start a family, and I figured early parenthood would be a good time to train for my first road marathon because of the relatively small amount of time that the training would demand (at least compared to long hiking days, rock climbing, etc). Our son Finn was born in June, 2012 and I spent the summer training for a fall marathon while working part-time and learning to be a parent. I left the Mountaineer in the fall in order to stay home with Finn while Meg went back to work. I started this blog in May of 2013 and plan to write training articles, route recommendations, gear reviews, race reports and more in addition to keeping a full training log.

Thanks for reading the site! Please feel free to email me with questions or comments.