My first taper week of the season starts today and like all taper weeks, I’m going to apologize to my spouse upfront. Because, dear friends, taper week is a bastard and I will be a right bastard too.

Taper week is well known to any endurance athlete. Whether you’re a runner, cyclist, triathlete, or crazy ultramarathoner, it’s wise to use the week before a race to let your body catch up, rest up, and fuel up so you’re at your peak strength and endurance on race day.

Most of us will gradually cut our workouts down, usually making the day or two before the rest days or very, very limited workouts. We also add more water and carbs into our diets to ensure our depleted muscles are full of glycogen once more (aka – carb loading). And lastly, if you’re like me, you cut out alcohol and excessive sugar while increasing the number of veggies I eat to ensure my diet is dialed in.
All of this is designed to get my body at its peak, so why is taper week so hard?
First of all, I love to exercise. I love working out. I love pushing my body. So, going from consistent workouts to almost none leaves me with energy and little to no outlet. It’s also like an itch in my brain. A low grade feeling of unease because I should be out running and I’m not. I should feel the drag of tiredness in my limbs, but instead, I have energy I NEED TO GET OUT!

Second, the extra carbs. I eat a moderate amount of carbs, maybe less than an average endurance runner because of my bodybuilding background, so when I add more in, I feel bloated and heavy. My weight will spike too as added glycogen means more water is held in my system, which will, of course, push my weight higher. I don’t really feel the weight as I move, but I get a little belly bloat, which is uncomfortable and mentally, I don’t like seeing the scale go up.

And finally, my vices. Oh, my sweet vices. I like a drink and I have a sweet tooth. I know both are moderately bad for me but taken in small doses, I don’t feel like I’m hacking years off my life. But cut them both out entirely and I get cranky.
So, as a recap, I have energy but no outlet, I’m bloated and heavy, and I’m cranky from a lack of sugar and alcohol. It’s sort of like being pregnant.

There is a final factor: race stress. It hits us all differently. Some people roll up to the starting line without a care in the world. Me? I stress all week long and for no damn good reason. I am unlikely to climb on a podium. The possibility is so remote that I don’t know why I stress. Maybe I risk injury, but with a wise race pace and not getting caught in my own head or mentally writing my next novel, I should be able to avoid most accidents.

I don’t know why I stress like this. But it happens every time. I spend the night before restless and afraid I’ll miss my alarm. I roll up to the starting line, tired and stressed, eyeing every other racer to see how badly I’ll get crushed. Then the gun goes off … and the stress evaporates. The hay is in the barn, as my academic advisor would tell me. There is nothing I can do to alter my performance now. The training is done. The stress can relax. Now I just have to finish.

But today is the start of taper week. A week of healthy eating, reduced workouts, and all the associated crankiness, stress, and irritability. Be kind to your tapering friends. You might get your head bitten off otherwise.

Sorry in advance!

Happy trails!

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Want to read more works by Author KR Paul? You can find my first novel here and it’s sequel here.

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Season’s greetings from my couch. Yup, like many this time of year, I’m sick. Unfortunately for me, I’m also supposed to race in two weeks and seriously, body? THIS IS NOT THE TIME! But it was also somewhat inevitable…

Since it’s apropos and I definitely have time since I’m not running today, this post is all about getting sick during a training cycle. I’ll be giving you some insight into why it seems to happen so often so close to race day, help you decide if you should keep training or not, and help settle your fears (and mine) about whether you can race.

Why am I sick? I lead a healthy life!

Let’s knock the first question out of the way: at this point, my doctors don’t think I have COVID-19, my breathing is fine, and I likely have a bacterial infection (yay, strep throat…). But like many of you who experience this so close to race day, I’m thinking, “why, oh why does it happen now??”

There’s a fairly simple answer: I’m depleted. I’ve been running hard and long for months now. Last week Sapper and I did our “Runningest Writer Showdown” for the Fisher House Foundation. I ran the hell out of myself through bad weather, hot on Thanksgiving and then cold and rainy on Sunday. No, the old wives’ tales that cold, wet weather makes you sick is just that, an old wives’ tale. But, when you’re already run down from hard training, as you would be toward the end of a training cycle, it’s harder to fight off those opportunistic bugs. I am utterly unsurprised even though I’m annoyed.

To train or not to train?

This is where you have to use sound judgment. The typical run of thumb is if your symptoms are from the neck up (runny nose, sore throat), you can keep training and if it’s below the neck/full body (cough, full-body aches, fever, fatigue, nausea) don’t train.

**COVID-19 caveat!** If you suspect COVID-19 at all, I had better not see you on a trail. Stay home, call your doctor, wear your damn mask. Most COVID-19 symptoms fall under the “below the neck” category, so you probably won’t choose to train through it, but don’t be an ass.

I had a sore throat with nausea and fatigue, so I’ve chosen not to run this week. It sucks, I hate being inactive, but the fatigue pretty much flattened me. I spent most of the last three days lying in bed listening to Force No One on Audible, working on a commercial writing piece associated with my day job, doing homework, playing videogames (hello World of Warcraft expansion!), and feeling sorry for myself.

Part of my fatigue comes from not eating. Low-grade nausea meant everything I could choke down felt like it might come back up, so I didn’t eat much the last few days. Even laying around all day, the body burns calories and, as you saw in “Race Weight,” when when calories in are less than calories out, you lose weight, even if you aren’t exercising. I wish I could say this was the healthy weight loss I wanted, but it’s not. That’s right, friends, starvation is a bad weight loss tactic! The best I can do now is gently add more food into my daily intake, get some strength back, and keep rolling.

What happens next? Oh no, can I still race??

Short answer, yes, you probably can with some important notes. It will depend on how long it takes your symptoms to resolve and how close to your race you are. I have roughly two weeks until the BUTS Bearly Ultra (13.5) and I’m at the tail end of being sick. I have a week to get my feet back under me, return to a healthy and full diet, and get one last long-ish run in before my taper. If I were a week closer, I would have accepted this is my taper week, carried an easy to moderate training load, and only taken a couple of days to taper. (I will cover tapering next week for those unfamiliar with the term.)

When deciding if you should race, here are the criteria I use:

– Am I still feeling symptoms?

Can you train with some symptoms? Yes. Should you race with symptoms? Bruh. No. A normal training load is probably ok to continue training, but the extra stress of racing will overload you. You will extend how long you are ill and risk a Did Not Finish (DNF). Ask me how I know… That’s right, I took a decongestant the days before and the day of Mississippi 50k 2017 and tried to power through. Guess who not only didn’t finish the 50k course (made it 20k and stopped) but ended up on the side of I-20 calling their spouse and asking if they should go to the ER or wait? Yeah, this chick. Don’t be dumb like me.

– Have I returned to a full diet for at least two days?

Training depletes your glycogen stores. It’s why people “carb load” in the days before the race; they’re trying to get fuel back into the muscles. If you haven’t been eating well and don’t get the critical chance to refuel your body, you can’t make it up by eating while you run.

– What is my resting heart rate?

I can tell if I’m overtraining, dehydrated, or ill based on an elevated heart rate. If you have a fitness device that monitors heart rate, you can track it over time and gauge when your heart rate is higher or lower than usual. If I see mine rise by more than 20% (average resting HR: 42, 20% = ~8) to 50bpm or more, I assume I’m sick, dehydrated, or overtrained. In any of these cases, it would be unwise to run.

– Do I feel mentally prepared?

Let’s face it, being sick is mentally taxing as well as physically taxing. I get loopy when my fever spikes. I get stressed by being sick. I get even more stressed when I’m hoping to get better close to a race. You need focus before a race and if your head isn’t in it, today may not be the day to race. I know that BUTS 13.5 has a ridge crossing like you read about: thirty feet of slippery, muddy trail with sheer sloping sides on both sides of the trail. There are firefighters on both sides, but they will only help you *after* you fall. That is not the trail conditions you want to find yourself up against when your head is floating off your shoulders from cold medicines, fever, or worry.

What’s the bottom line?

The course will always be there. There will be other races. Yes, it’s heartbreaking to train so hard for something only to have to bow out at the last minute. But your health is worth more than a finisher’s medal. Be safe, be smart, be healthy!

Happy trails!

Enjoy what you just read? Please share on social media or email utilizing the buttons below, fans like you sharing what they love are what keeps this train rolling!

Want to read more works by Author KR Paul? You can find my first novel here and it’s sequel here.

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Just looking for wild stories of cave diving, ultramarathons, blacksmithing, or powerlifting. Yeah, I’ve got those too!

Hello fellow distance runners, fitness lovers, and distance runner stans! Today we’re tackling another topic that requires a disclaimer upfront, just like Confessions From The Trail: Nutrition. Ready for it?

I am not, nor have I ever been a certified nutritionist, dietitian, or even remotely trained/certified in telling people what to eat.

Got all that? Cool. Don’t sue me. Any time we talk about nutrition, keep in mind that everyone is a walking chemistry set and what works for me may not work for you. Or, your mileage may vary. Literally YMMV.

Since I’ve already covered nutrition, today, I’ll focus more specifically on weight. Before you get out the torches and pitchforks, please understand that this post will focus on getting the best weight for *your* race. As always, YMMV. Speaking from experience, there is a huge difference between maintaining a certain weight for health, for a bodybuilding competition, and for endurance racing.

When you’re maintaining weight for health, the upper and lower boundaries are fairly wide. As long as you are neither severely underweight nor overweight, your day to day weight should be relatively effortless. Going a few calories or pounds over or under doesn’t impact your daily life.

With bodybuilding, many competitors are willing to accept a temporary impact on their overall health to achieve that ripped stage look. However, it requires incredible dedication to a very strict diet and the look is unsustainable. I have had negative impacts during both seasons I competed and it’s part of why I am taking three years off between seasons. I know I will never be a professional and I value my health over winning. At the very lean body fat seen on stage (~14% for me), I have almost no energy and the idea of running a 5k, let alone a 50k, it’s beyond the pale.

Running is a different beast. Your weight should be dictated by performance, not a look; however, many people enjoy the aesthetic they achieve with their race weight. To me, my race weight should balance a light and lean physique with sufficient body fat to allow an energy reserve during long runs. Or more colloquially: a good thrust to weight ratio.

It’s not polite for a lady to say her age or weight, but I’m going to break the weight rule today. I am 5’8” and today I am sitting at 155lbs and 22% body fat. I am healthy, I look healthy, and I feel good.

That said, losing 7-10lbs of body fat will allow me to race at my best weight. “Best weight” is a very subjective term, but I’ve found this to be the ideal balance of leanness and energy.

In the 145-148lbs range, I have ~20% body fat. I am lean enough that I’m not hauling body fat I don’t need and I’m not adding extra stress to my joints as I carry that weight over many, many miles. On the other side, I’m not bodybuilding stage lean and I have enough energy to carry me through race day. I find that once I start getting below 140lbs (or ~18-19% body fat), I start seeing my energy levels decrease and negatively impact my long runs.

For those doing math at home, yes, at 5’8” I’m at 20% body fat when I hit 145lbs. I carry a lot of muscle for a runner. I’m a runner with a bodybuilding problem and yes, my teammates on my endurance racing team mock me mercilessly. I’m not giving up the weights, though, because they make me a strong, if slightly more dense, runner.

What can you take away from this? First off, I want everyone to understand that you should listen to your body. Learn from the feel or it. When do you feel tired? When do you feel energetic? When do you feel extra strain in your back, knees, and hamstrings? Those will help inform you where your running sweet spot is.

Second, there are some general rules of thumb you can start with for body fat percentage. The American Council on Exercise provides the following table for men’s and women’s body fat percentages.

What category should you aim for? The “essential” category is what you see on a bodybuilding stage. Very lean with visible muscles but no energy. I think of the “athletes” category as your professional athletes. The high end is closer to a sustainable level of body fat, but many people find it difficult to keep their daily diet strict enough to maintain it and will drift up during their offseason. The “fitness” category is what I aim for early in my training season as I lean out during training. It also is a very nice balance of the “fit” look and sustainability. The “average” body fat is very sustainable and provides a good energy reserve from which to draw; however, many people find that at this body fat, they have greater stress on their joints and they don’t feel they reflect a “fit” look.

Finally, the “obese” range. Oof. I won’t lie. I have raced and finished many endurance races in the “obese” category. It is 100% possible to race well in this body fat range. I found that I was more tired, had greater pain in my knees and feet, and just plain didn’t like my look at this level of body fat.

Bottom line: there are many resources available on the internet that will help you find the best race weight, but it will also come down to how you feel, both physically and mentally in that weight.

Update: I not only made my race weight for the Mississippi 50k, I am still slowly shedding some winter weight and can see my abs again!

Happy trails!

Enjoy what you just read? Please share on social media or email utilizing the buttons below, fans like you sharing what they love are what keeps this train rolling!

Want to read more works by Author KR Paul? You can find my first novel here and it’s sequel here.

Want more than that? Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Stay up to date on the latest KR Paul news by joining our mailing list.

Just looking for wild stories of cave diving, ultramarathons, blacksmithing, or powerlifting. Yeah, I’ve got those too!