As a general rule of thumb, most people will follow a two or three-week taper when it comes to big races, to give your body time to recover and be at peak condition for a race. I have also read that it takes at least a fortnight for the improvements from a training session to take effect, therefore I always take at least two weeks for a taper, and if I have managed to hit all my training targets, maybe three.

This upcoming race follows quite quickly on the heels of my Half Ironman, so I extended my training period as long as possible, meaning this is my final week of full on training, with a two-week taper starting Monday.

Yesterday I had a sweat fest. I decided that I needed to get in a long bike of at least 160k and/or 6hrs, as my longest this year was 120k and 5hrs.  I had not been able to follow my normal training routine this year, which in the past 4 years had always included a trip to “good biking country” where I could do at least one all day bike, and being stuck in Tokyo this year I decided to get on my indoor trainer and “just do it”.

Damn it was tough, I set up a 90k course in my CompuTrainer, pushed hard for just over 3 hours, took a 15 minute break and then did another 87k course, for a total of 177k and 6:11 hrs. I have set up a few YouTube folders with a mixture of music and inspirational videos, which help pass the time, but the heat and boredom generated from such a long ride indoors is a tough mental workout in itself.

Directly after I finished the session, I weighed myself  and I had lost over 3kg which must be mostly water weight, this is despite using a strong fan and drinking probably over 6 litres of liquid as I rode. I then ate dinner before I forced myself outside for a run, expecting to suffer, but amazingly I felt very fresh and ran 6.5k at a decent pace, although it took me over an hour to stop sweating.

I felt proud fo myself for what I achieved, and felt remarkably good, although it was a worry to see blood rather than pee when  I went to the toilet after I finished my run. It has happened a couple of times before and apparently is caused by the constant jiggling around of running, when there isn’t enough liquid in my bladder. It is panic inducing to see the toilet bowl filled with blood but I know I just need to drink as much liquid as I can cope with, and it will go away by itself within a few hours.

This morning I feel tired, but will get the run done shortly. I then plan another 4hr bike ride tomorrow followed by a brick run, which will bring my main training to a close for this triathlon season. All that will be left is a two-week wind down and then the big race in Korea. I’m still a couple of kg over my normal race weight, and my running has been pretty slow so I am not expecting miracles but if I can keep within the 14hr range I will be more than happy, especially considering I had an operation on my groin in March.

I am already looking forward to focus on my efforts on marathon training ,will ne nice to only have to worry about running and if I continue to #gettherundone, I don’t see why I cannnot reach my aim of qualifying for Boston this coming season.