Taper Week

I get all out of sorts during a Taper week. I get to sleep late since the workouts are shorter, I am less hungry, but I still feel like eating and I worry like crazy about losing fitness. Old aches and pains start to subside and new pains start to appear. The workouts are so short and easy, that you wonder if it is even worth doing them at all.

To start out my Taper week, I took Monday off. This was more a matter of needing extra rest from my busy weekend, than having a scheduled day off. Today I rode an easy 14 mile in Prospect Park. At one point during the ride, the usual morning peloton caught up to me and slowly passed. I jumped onto the back and hung out with the pack for a mile or so. However, they were going at a very leisurely pace and having the nice draft in the pack made the ride much too easy. My HR dipped from around 70 percent to somewhere in the low 60’s, so I decided to let myself coast past them on the downhill.

When the pack saw me passing, it was like I disturbed a swarm of bees. They all started sprinting furiously to get ahead of me and I swear they wanted to cut me off. I found the whole thing very amusing.