Ladies and gents, THE LAST LONG RUN IS DONE. Which mean–IT’S TAPER TIME!!! Ok, sorry for shouting, but I am SO excited to be heading into the last stage of training with just 19 days to go until the race. I’m definitely feeling a zillion times more prepared than I did last year at this point, so it’s extra gratifying to be dialing things down a little bit.

To back up, I started this week out pretty exhausted. I ran both the day before and the day after my half marathon, powered through a 13 hour workday on Monday, did a hard track workout Tuesday, and then absolutely crashed Tuesday afternoon. I think it was a combination of physical and mental exhaustion, but either way, I ended up leaving work early and taking a nap before reviving myself for class.

I have a fair amount on my plate right now (school, work, running, and wedding planning, to name a few) and this was a good reminder to give my body what it’s asking for. Which meant taking Wednesday off from running and hitting up a solid 90 minute yoga class.

Thursday morning I got my legs moving again to bump my mileage back up. I got a new GPS watch for my birthday and was definitely on the struggle bus trying to get it to work during this run–I apparently had it set to kilometers instead of miles. Oops! Now all is well and I can’t wait to play around with all of the features, the most important of which is that I don’t have to wait around for my old school Garmin Forerunner 10 to spend 5 minutes searching for satellites every morning. Huzzah.

Friday I got up far earlier than I am comfortable with (UGH) to do my marathon practice long run. Basically, I tried to mirror marathon day as much as possible in terms of what I ate, wore, carried, etc. I had my gluten-free plain bagel with peanut butter and banana and then packed up my gels and hand-held water bottle before meeting the girls for our 20 miler.

We had a fun, chatty run with some solid splits, and even managed a little surge at the end (last 4 miles were at 7:46, 7:50, 7:38, and 7:40). I definitely was hurting by the end of this run which is a little bit scary, since on race day I’ll still have 6.2 miles to go, but I know the atmosphere and the fact that I’ll be fully rested/tapered will make a huge difference. My tummy felt settled, I managed to stay pretty hydrated, and I didn’t have any major chafing/blister issues, so all systems are ready to roll!

After the run I quickly jetted to the office (zomg guys working after a long run is rough) and then to a fun family dinner before J and I hit the road on Saturday to head up to Burlington, VT for a music festival which turned out to be SUCH a blast! We saw Guster (my all-time favorite band), Grace Potter, Old Crow Medicine Show, and so many other awesome performances. Plus, I got to run and do yoga on Lake Champlain and also eat all of the amazing things. Burlington is a super fun town for a weekend away, although prepare yourself for 3.5 hours in the car each way. Compression socks FTW. Also, I highly recommend this podcast series on the Manson murders if you have a long car ride coming up–it’s fascinating.

Week 15:

• Tuesday: Track! Lotsa 200’s at mile pace–speedwork at 5:45 average
• Wednesday: 90 minute yoga and a much needed extra rest day
• Thursday: 5.5 miles
• Friday: Final 20 miler, 8:00 average pace
• Saturday: OFF
• Sunday: 3.3 mile shakeout, 60 minute yoga

  

  Linking up with The Weekly Wrap, hosted by HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin!