Am I Tapering Subconsciously? Or am I Just Lax?

This week has really been atypical in almost all respects. From a physical conditioning perspective, it's been a very light week, and not because I'm intentionally tapering for Sunday's half marathon either. It's mostly distractions and other life matters preempting things.

After Tuesday's short run, I did nothing on Wednesday, and then was able to get an hour of slow-ish run time on the treadmill today. I intentionally tried to keep my HR under 140 until the final mile. That results in an average speed of 6.7 mph or about a 9-minute mile pace. That's about where I expect to pace myself on Sunday.

The bizarre thing was that as I was within 2 minutes of finishing up and cooling down, that damn right calf started to knot up again. How does it know? This is probably the 5th time the symptom of cramping or straining or whatever it is comes on right at the end of the workout. I'm starting to guess it has something to do with maybe some sort of let-up in focus or relaxation as my mental gaze fixates on the finish line. Does my technique collapse? It doesn't feel like it does. It could be that I throttle back a little bit before the end and then perform a final push, but the calf muscle, having already started to relax during the throttle-back, doesn't like that last surge.

I'm not injured. It's not like it hurt to the point of failure. It feels more like it's just stiffened up more than the other muscles and tendons. And fades.

I just don't want to have to be dealing with that issue halfway through the race. I'm not racing, but I don't want to be hassling with it halfway through the course.

I did the chinups workout, but it doesn't look like I'm going to get to the sit ups and push ups. It's late and we only had dinner a short while ago, so I'm not feeling up to the exertion. I'm right about on the cusp of not being able to do the requisite number of minimum reps on the last set, which means I may have to redo this week's program. If I do make it, the next step will be to do the exhaustion test and see where I stand. I'm looking forward to that actually -- the chin ups especially. I'm excited about the prospect of being able to do 20. I won't be there yet, but I expect to beat my personal best (12 or 13, I think).