It’s actually been a long time since I was in such good shape that I needed to taper, or even was interested in tapering my workouts prior to a race. Last summer I swam though the summer with no real taper before my long swim. The last 4-5 Swedish Nationals have also fallen in a time frame, where I was travelling a lot with work prior to and after, so my focus has not been 100% on pool swimming.

Swedish Nationals is nine days, and last night was the start of my taper in the pool and today I started to reduce my outside the pool training. I haven’t had a real taper since 2013, so it will be interesting to see how my body and my mind will react.

Right or wrong, I won’t know until I look up at the clock, but this week I removed my spinning class, and will continue with my Crossfit workouts, will only swimming about 60 minutes at my evenings workouts. Sunday will be my last “big” swim. Next week I will only swim three times before packing up and heading to Nationals.

Mentally I am ok with reducing my workouts from upwards of 12 hours a week to just under 10 hours this week to less than 5 next week in such a short time. I know it will effect my progress in my goals for the year, but I am more concerned about the physical effects. Will I be able to sleep as well when I get home with more energy. Will I be able to avoid the extra snacking given the extra time I will have being at home before going to bed. Getting home late and being exhausted has been the key to me snacking less.

Watching my daughter have a great meet last weekend, has put some pressure on me. I was just hoping to swim better than I did last year. Last year she beat me in the 1500m, but this year I am nervous that her 800m and 200m free times might beat mine 😦

Luckily for me I don’t have to worry that she will ever beat me in any breaststroke race….