You don't really taper for Hardrock. You train as hard as you can and then arrive in Silverton hopefully at least 2 weeks before the race to acclimatise to the altitude. The 3 previous times I have run I have arrived 3 weeks before. And then still suffered terribly with altitude problems during the race. This year I will arrive exactly 2 weeks before the race. Cutting it a bit fine and I am wishing I had scraped another week but work is chaotic and as it is I am leaving at an inopportune time. It also means I have no time off to pack and sort my gear. Fortunately, I have been doing that incrementally and pretty much finished packing today.
So instead of tapering in the last couple of weeks, you spend most of every day out on the course, mostly helping with the course marking. This gives you the benefit of familiarising with parts of the course, meeting other runners, and getting quality trail time climbing and descending at high altitude. This ends on about the Monday or Tuesday before race day (Friday). So the taper is just a few days.
Last long run yesterday, sweeping the Surfcoast Marathon. Not much elevation gain but 7 3/4 hours of trail was perfect. Backed that up with a solid 26km this morning for another 100+km week.
Feb
Week 24 65km (Frenchman's Cap Tas 45km)
Week 23 75km
Week 22 71km
Week 21 88km
Mar
Week 20 93km
Week 19 88km
Week 18 84km (Razorback 64km 12:15hr)
Week 17 76km
Week 16 96km (Geelong Half Mara in 1:29)
Apr
Week 15 80km (3hr)
Week 14 102km (4:29hr)
Week 13 104km (Maroondah Dam 50km -sweeping 9:27hr)
Week 12 102km (5:32hr)
May
Week 11 102km (5:43hr)
Week 10 96km (Mt Macedon measure 54km 10:20hr)
Week 9 102km (7:05hr)
Week 8 102km (Mt Macedon 50km -sweeping 9:42hr)
June
Week 7 116km (Prom100 17:32hr)
Week 6 111km (5:32hr)
Week 5 109km (7:09hr)
Week 4 111km (Surfcoast marathon - 7:46hr sweeping)
July
Week 3
Week 2 (course marking Hardrock)
Week 1 (course marking and taper Hardrock)
Race
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Ultrarunner fighting Atrial Fibrilation (AF)
This blog has pretty much always been about running ultras, mostly Hardrock. It still is but now it is also about running after AFib. I was forced to miss Hardrock in 2011 due to the onset of AF but my long term goal was to get back to running milers. And hopefully help any other runners with AF who stumble upon this site. I never made it into Hardrock in 2012, or 2013, or 2014. I didn't have a qualifier for 2015. I ran Fatdog in Canada instead. That was tough. I finished my 4th Hardrock in 2016 and now I'm back to try for the magical number 5.
If you want the history of my AF the heart problems all started back on May 25 2011: http://howmanysleeps.blogspot.com/2011/05/out-of-hardrock.html
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