Tapering blues?

This time next week hopefully I will have put in a good performance and will have completed the Swashbuckler half ironman in the New Forrest.  My training plan has built this event in and it will give me the opportunity to try out my gear and practise transition.  What I wasn't expecting was the chance to go through the tapering blues.  Tapering is when you reduce the volume of training in the run up to an event but increase the intensity.  What lots of athletes experience with the change is niggles creeping in, aches and pains or in my case a tickly chest cough.  I've been fighting it off since Majorca and it's drained my energy.
As a result I've had to skip a few sessions this week and on Saturday instead of 4 hours on the bike and a 1 hour run off the bike it was only 2.5 hours on the bike feeling hellish, no run. This morning however I completed my bike and run sessions and was pleased with the results.  I'm hoping this means my additional eating to get some more fat on to help with the endurance, and the extra rest I've been taking is starting to pay off and come next weekend I'll be fit and ready.
Feeling like this acts as a reminder that the hardest part of Ironman is not the event itself, not that it's easy, but the 9 months of training to prepare your body and mind.  Getting to the start line injury free is the first objective.  The second is getting there fit.  Everything thereafter is a bonus.  My focus is now on a week today and I am really looking forward to it - my first triathlon in almost 4 years.