Taper-City

I am now fully into taper-mode. Even more so than scheduled. Basically, my schedule has been thrown out of whack and I've had to shift the distance runs, whcih mans a run during the week has fallen thorugh twicely. It's okay though. I think I needed those extra two days off, and I've already accumulated many more miles than they prescribed me by replacing a couple of recovery weekend runs with added long distance runs (which may be why my legs are D-E-D, dead).

Yesterday's Run

Distance: 13.16 miles
Time: 1:59:24
Overall Impression: Slower than last halfie, but overall pretty damn good. (STLHBOPDG)


I exploited Tessa's last misadventure with Germanwings to hit up the pharmacy at the airport on Saturday. I attacked them with both a barrage of questions about GI problems with running and demands for drugs to help it. I won't waste people's time explaining why there was a pharmacy at the airport. Just know that the Germans don't like to travel without condoms and skin care products. This is true of train stations as well, and probably true of former zeppelin stations.
After a bit of negotiating, I got a gel-like substance that I was supposed to take before running in order to negate the acidity in my esiphogous, and a liquid derived from various herbs and roots that I mix with water three times daily.
I was not encouraged.
See, Germany is a land of witch-doctors. They have this reputation of scientific know-how and of rational thought funded by Hegel's Dialectic Workshop. The thing is, they really went through the Enlightenment with both eyes closed and their hands covering their ears. Ask anyone. And most unfortunately, this extends to medicine. SO, most pharmacists skip real, modern, training and will regularly prescribe tings that are actually brewed in a kiln in their basement according to time-honored Celtic mumbo jumbo. Ask for aspirin, and you get moss. Regularly.
That was Saturday afternoon. I took everything as "prescribed", and hit the ground on Monday. I must say, I felt good. My legs were relatively fresh, and the burp-o-meter, although active early, left me mostly alone. Even the early problems were benign (i.e., no acid).
I kept an early 8:45 pace, which I intentionally slowed about halfway in due to the logic of the taper. Around ten miles in, I was hit by a few minor problems, but instead of burping up pure, firey, acid, I was burping up chalky gel-like medicine. I oddly preferred the chalk. By the end, I was pleased I clocked it in less than two hours. However, I was shocked yesterday about how tired I was throughout the day. I really thought I would just fly through the run like it was nothing, which really proves that running 18+ miles at a time makes one completely mentally ill.
Which brings us back to the witch doctors. I must say, I ran more relaxed than I have in weeks. This alone is a most important thing for me, because when I'm relaxed I can forget about the running and just coast. When I'm nervous, I'm constantly checking my body for updates in misery, and the time crawls along acccordingly. But I was really relaxed because the drops seemd to be working somewhat. My stomach felt fine. And the gel killed the acid, which meant I didn't have to stop to switch out my esophogous with a lead pipe. And thats a plus in itself. So, who knows? Maybe the witch doctors helped for once. Or maybe it is the first placebo that works in spite of the test subject's determination that it won't work.

Comeonayeahha.