Tale of the Taper - Episode III

After the unfortunate events from Tale of the Taper - Episode II (that post was subsequently removed due to its offensive nature to some of my more sensitive readers), I continued on with my 14 day taper as suggested by Coach.

I woke up early on Saturday morning to head over to my final swim lesson at UML. It was another intense lesson with a couple of eureka moments.

Everything finally clicked by the end of the final session and I was swimming more like a sponge than a rock. The instructor said that I should spend the rest of the spring and summer working on not clinging to the wall before I consider coming back in the fall when she's not teaching.

(Lolz Cat to the Rescue!)

The sun was shining and the birds were singing by the time I got out of the pool at 9AM. Everybody else was already done, or putting in their run, at this time, so I was left to fend for myself.

Reno had mentioned something called a depletion run the night before, so I researched it and decided that it sounded like a fun thing to do on my own. It's always a good idea to be alone when you pass out during a depletion workout in order to avoid embarrassment and resuscitation.

So, I decided to go to the one place that I always enjoy running on a nice spring day when all of the other runners flake out on me: Boston. Specifically, around the Charles River where there were plenty of VDOTS out this morning.

I felt really great 8 miles into the run and it looked like the depletion part wasn't happening as planned, even though I was going close to marathon pace for most of it. I went to my bag of tricks and pulled out a hill workout to help me burn off the rest of the fumes in the hopes of passing out in front of the Capitol Building like a drunk state senator.

I headed over to Beacon Hill and did a 6x hill workout. I wasn't alone. It looked like everyone running the marathon was out here with the same idea. It was actually quite a cool sight, and feeling, to be doing a hill workout with 100 other runners. The poor out-of-town tourists probably thought that the local asylum was closed for the day.

Beacon Hill is insanely perfect for an intense hill workout. It's a straight, gradual climb over 400 meters, and not too steep at any one point. I was able to maintain my marathon pace through the uphills and just recovered on the downhills, which is the opposite of my Catamount Hill workout where I pound the downhills and rest on the uphills.

My legs were burning and my stomach was growling for carbs by the 6th repeat, so I called it a day with 11.5 miles in the bag. I jogged back to my car on the outskirts of Chinatown (great free parking near the Herald building if you ever want free parking on the weekends in Boston) to get in 13.1.

Now to find that Boston Duck Tour bus that hit me....