It's Taper Time!

Afternoon Run
3 miles Easy Run
Treadmill

2 Weeks until the marathon!!

Last night, as we were doing our last significant run of this training plan (14 miles), we were getting really excited for the race.  I'm tempted to say we were almost too excited as we kept the pace pretty quick and as a result I'm wicked sore today but, "too" excited may not even be possible.  I am running my first marathon in 2 weeks! 

It seemed like it has been a long time coming but now that it's right around the corner it's getting real. 

These last two weeks are the tapering phase of the training.  It's basically a time to give the body a period of rest before the big effort on race day.  The runs are shorter-- I'm scheduled to run a 4, 3, 4 sequence this week with an 8 mile long run on the weekend-- and are to be run at an easy pace.  The week before the race week I will run a 3 and a couple of 2's... basically just keeping my legs moving so they don't get stale.  Then on Sunday, we race!

With my new found endurance (I just ran 23 last weekend for crying out loud!) tapering is going to be hard.  It seems like an unnatural break in momentum but all the training plans I've looked at and every runner I've talked to about marathon training (and maybe even every runner that have ever lived) emphasize the taper so it seems tried and true.  It will be good to have a bit of extra time now that I'm not running as far at least.  If only I could be disciplined enough to use it to get some extra rest.