Final taper day before Draper Days 5 K. I am also running the Deseret News Marathon, and am tapering for that as well for several reasons: - I need an excuse to back off the mileage
- If the standard three Kenyans all run 2:27 this year, 1 minute could be worth $2000. Of course, if all the Kenyans that finish run 2:22 or faster, and there are no dark horses running under 2:35, the taper is a waste of training. But I would rather err on the safe side.
- Having fresh legs would not hurt the recovery - this one is debatable. One could argue that you can push the fresh legs much harder, and make it much harder to recover. But I think if you avoid the temptation, fresh legs recover faster from the same stress than the tired ones.
- It gives me a chance to run a good 5 K right before it without wasting a week of training on the taper.
So today I ran alone. Jogged 3.5 miles out, then turned around and ran a 1 mile pick-up. First 0.75 at marathon pace, then the last 0.25 at 5 K pace. Ended up doing 1:25, 1:23, 1:23, 1:14. On the last quarter, had a hard time catching that 5 K pain feeling, so I thought I was going slower, about 1:17-1:18 maybe. So I was very pleased with 1:14. This gave me 5:25 for the mile. Finished 7 miles in 48:39. Ran with Julia in the afternoon (0.5), then took Benjamin out for a health test - he said he was feeling more normal. He failed it - 0.25 in 2:44 and it felt hard, lack of energy, etc. Brought the stroller along just in case I would need it, and ended up using it to bring him back. So he is still too sick to race and will not be running Draper Days tomorrow. It is a miracle that I have not yet gotten sick - everyone else in our family has already. I count my blessings and pray that they will continue. Added the Mileage Board. Feedback is welcome, and very much encouraged. Latest web traffic news - we are now getting about 75,000 page impressions a month with about 9,500 unique visitors. 95% of our visits come from the US, 3% from the UK. Of the US visits, 58% are from Utah (down from 75% a few months ago), 10% from a location Google Analytics could not identify, 5% from Arizona, 4% from Idaho, 3% from Colorado, and 3% from California. Does anybody have any experience/understanding of the online coaching market? There is a lot of informal coaching happening on our site. However, I have been thinking about adding some kind of a formal arrangement as well. Some questions need to be answered. What should be the qualifications for someone to be a coach? What programs do you offer? How much do you charge? My goal is to create an environment that allows the sub-elite runners (for male marathoners, the 2:20-2:30 range) to really focus on running and move up to the next level while helping runners with less talent and experience achieve their full potential. One idea is to have a setup that allows them to work as online coaches. The question is - is the market for formal coaching deep enough for us to tap into it?
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