Is there anything more torturous than the taper?

A friend of mine, a few days before Karl Meltzer's Speedgoat 50K, threw up a facebook post: "Is there anything more torturous than the taper? Methinks not." That about sums it up. For like 15 gazillion reasons. But that's too many to discuss, and I definitely made up that number (but I'm still not convinced it's an over-exaggeration). Five is a nice round number though, so here are the top five reasons I hate tapering, even though I woefully long for it during every final week of high mileage I run before any race.

Courtesy of the Oatmeal

1. I'm still hungry! You'd think that running less, and therefore burning less calories, would mean that I might possibly have some let-up from the 24/7 hunger beast that haunts my life and forces me to the fridge over and over to scrounge for food. But nope. Sitting in class the other morning, following 3 (small'ish) breakfasts and a run of roughly half the distance I would normally have covered this morning, I was so hungry I could barely concentrate. I ate two banana
s on the 10 minute drive to class. That lasted me five minutes. The legs still demand feeding.

2. I have SO much more free time. Sounds awesome right? Wrong. Because when I have free time, I want to go run and hike and ride my bike and climb some rocks. Except, oh wait, I'm tapering. And supposed to be letting my legs recover. So, um, substituting a 20 mile run for a 50 mile bike ride probably isn't the appropriate response. Except that it's taking every fiber of my being to not go do that.

3. I'm almost back to being well rested. Which is awesome. Except see #2. I finally have the energy to want to go and have epic (well probably not quite epic) outdoor adventures. And, well, see #2.

4. My legs also don't seem to have the energy to do my shorter and easier workouts. Probably because I've spent every waking moment since tapering began a whopping 4 days ago feeling just a bit on edge and antsy because of the one day I took off and all the extra sleep I've gotten in the interim.

5. Oh hey! Race day is now right around the corner. And all at the same time, I want the race to be here right.now and I also really really really want an extra month of training before I have to start tapering. I'm not actively stressed out or nervous - yet - but I'm also not exactly relaxed and ready for it to be race day yet. Kinda like limbo. Just sitting around and waiting.

Oh and in other news - my mileage for July was 316 miles. A whopping 60 miles more than any other month I've ever run. Boom. 16 days until Leadville.