Restless Legs, Restless Mind: How Vermont Marathoners Actually Survive the Taper

You've logged the miles. You've conquered the hills. You've dragged yourself out of bed on dark February mornings when the temperature in Burlington barely crept above single digits. Race day is two weeks out, and your coach — or your training plan — is telling you to dial it back. Run less. Rest more. Trust the process.

And then your brain completely loses it.

Suddenly your left knee feels weird. Your energy is off. You're convinced you've lost all your fitness in four days. You start Googling "can you gain marathon fitness in 10 days" at midnight. Sound familiar? Welcome to the taper trap — and you are absolutely not alone.

What the Taper Actually Does (And Why It Feels Wrong)

Here's the thing about tapering: it works. The science is clear. Reducing your training load in the final two to three weeks before a marathon allows your muscles to repair micro-damage, your glycogen stores to top off, and your nervous system to recover from months of accumulated stress. You are not losing fitness. You are, in the most literal sense, becoming a faster runner while doing less running.

But your body doesn't send you a memo about that. Instead, it sends you phantom aches, restless sleep, and a creeping anxiety that whispers you should probably go run another 18-miler just to be safe.

"The taper is where training meets psychology," says Dr. Marisol Hendricks, a sports psychologist who has worked with endurance athletes across New England. "Athletes spend months building a routine that involves a lot of physical output. When you suddenly remove that outlet, the anxiety doesn't disappear — it just has nowhere to go. It turns inward."

That inward turn is what runners call "taper madness," and it's practically a rite of passage for anyone who has trained seriously for a marathon.

The Vermont Factor: When Scenery Can't Save You

Vermont runners have a genuine advantage during training. The trails, the hills, the clean air — it all adds up to a training environment that's as good as it gets. But during the taper, that same environment can become a source of frustration. The trails are right there. The roads are calling. Every time you lace up for a short, easy shakeout and turn around after four miles, it feels like a betrayal of everything you love about running.

Kira Osgood, a Burlington-based runner who has completed the Vermont City Marathon three times, knows the feeling well. "The first time I tapered properly, I thought something was wrong with me," she says. "I'd go out for an easy 30-minute run and come home feeling more anxious than when I left. I started questioning every training decision I'd made since January."

Kira's experience is textbook taper anxiety — and it's rooted in something real. Endurance running releases a significant amount of stress hormones and endorphins. Cut the mileage, and your body is suddenly managing those neurochemicals differently. It's not weakness. It's physiology.

The Overthinking Spiral and How to Recognize It

Taper overthinking tends to follow a pretty predictable pattern. It usually starts with physical hypochondria — noticing every twinge, tightness, or bit of fatigue as potential evidence of injury or illness. From there, it escalates into training retrospection, where you start auditing every long run, every skipped workout, every slice of pizza you ate in March.

Then comes the comparison trap. You scroll through Strava and see other runners still logging big miles. You wonder if you should be doing the same. You're not. You shouldn't be. But that rational knowledge does very little to quiet the noise.

"The overthinking spiral is actually a sign that you care deeply about your race," Dr. Hendricks points out. "The challenge is redirecting that energy rather than suppressing it. Telling yourself to 'just relax' rarely works. You need something to do with all that focus."

Practical Ways to Redirect the Energy

So what actually helps? Vermont marathoners and sports psychology research point to a few strategies that make a real difference.

Write down what you've done, not what you haven't. Pull up your training log and actually read it. Look at how many miles you've run since you started this training cycle. Look at your long runs, your tempo workouts, your hill repeats. You did the work. It's right there in black and white. Use that as evidence against the anxiety narrative your brain is spinning.

Create a race-week routine early. Anxiety thrives in open-ended time. If your schedule suddenly has big empty blocks where runs used to be, fill them intentionally — not with more exercise, but with things that support your race: sleep, nutrition prep, gear checks, course review. Structure is calming.

Stay off the injury forums. Seriously. If you're feeling a weird sensation in your hip flexor, the last thing you need is a Reddit thread full of worst-case scenarios. Trust your body. If something genuinely feels wrong, call your doctor or physical therapist. Otherwise, log off.

Use visualization as a training tool. The taper is actually a great time to run your race mentally. Close your eyes and walk yourself through the Vermont City Marathon course — the start on Waterfront Park, the neighborhoods, the energy of the crowd at mile 20. Rehearse how you want to feel. Rehearse your responses to hard moments. Mental reps count.

Keep moving, just differently. Short, easy runs are your friend during the taper — not as fitness builders, but as anxiety managers. A 20-minute jog at a genuinely easy pace can do a lot to settle a restless nervous system. You can also lean into low-impact movement like walking, yoga, or easy cycling to scratch the itch without compromising recovery.

The Confidence Reframe

Maybe the most important shift you can make during the taper is in how you interpret what you're feeling. Nervous energy isn't a sign that something is wrong. It's a sign that you're invested. It's a sign that race day matters to you — and that's actually a good thing.

James Theriault, a Montpelier runner who qualified for Boston after running Vermont City, puts it this way: "I used to fight the taper anxiety. I'd try to logic my way out of it or distract myself completely. What finally worked was just accepting it. I told myself: I'm nervous because I've worked hard and I want this. That's not a problem. That's just being human."

The taper isn't the enemy. It's the final chapter of your preparation — the part where your body quietly does the work your legs already finished. Your only job in these last two weeks is to stay healthy, stay consistent with your routine, and show up to the start line in Burlington ready to run the race you trained for.

You've put in the miles. You've earned this. Now get out of your own way and let race day come to you.