Taper Time

T-Minus 11 days until the Marathon, and I am officially Tapering!

I have gotten in 2 runs since my long run on Thursday- an easy 5 miler on Sunday, it was much needed after a 2 day running hiatus. 5 easy miles in 47:xx, it was right at a 9:30 pace and felt good.

Monday morning is when mentally the taper really began because it was the start of another week that would be very very different than the 16 that came before it.
I had a 6 mile tempo planned- I told myself that the tempo miles didn't have to be at my aggressive 8:20-8:25 tempo pace but any miles under 8:55 was fine.

6 Miles- 53:12, 8:52 average pace
Mile 1-  9:31
Mile 2-  8:49
Mile 3-  8:41
Mile 4-  8:34
Mile 5-  8:28
Mile 6-  9:09


So I went a little faster than I maybe needed to, but I was itching to run fast. It wasn't a particularly easy tempo, my legs felt a little heavy, but it wasn't a killer run, and I love the negative splits :) I have read SO many different opinions on how to run during the taper, some say always easy, some say keep up the intensity just cut miles, some say do nothing, for once my incessent googling did not pay off, but I decided to drop the miles and keep the intensity pretty high, we will see how it goes.

Thus far I am not having any dreaded "taper twinges" or panic attacks, but there is one thing I have found that I am not quite sure what to do with, and that is Time!!!!


Normally if I run in the AM then I give myself 2 hours, which between getting ready and actually running I need the full 2 hours (figure 9 miles = 90 minutes). So with only needing 1 hour to run AND stretch, I found myself able to sleep in a little more Monday morning, and with nothing left to do once I was home, and no pressing need to be in bed by 9pm, I had to find a distraction...

It started innocently enough, I really wanted to make pumpkin muffins. I had seen a super easy recipe for pumpkin cookies and figured with one slight modification I would have some awesome muffins- I was right!

Well a dozen pumpkin muffins later and it was only 7:30pm, hmm what to do now....

Next came the recipe for super easy and tasty peanut butter cookies. So yeah, I can't run much at all and I now have 4 dozen baked goods in my house right now, great. I really don't want to part with the pumpkin muffins because they are THAT good, but I figure I can ditch them at work so I don't eat them all, and I can always make more, and God knows we still have a week and half to go so that is a very realistic possibility.
Penny & Jaime- be ready for big baskets of baked goods as marathon gifts!


So that is how I kept myself busy last night, I still was in bed at a reasonable time, got 8 hours of sleep and woke up about 10 minutes before my alarm this morning. Considering I was up and awake at 6am with nice weather and good feeling legs, I really wanted to run, but I knew 4 days in a row this week was not what I had planned nor was it the best idea. I sat on the couch for a few minutes trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing, my lunch was packed, I had already taken a shower last night, the bed was made, hmmmm. So I went to the gym.

Now before you start yelling at me. I took my newest issue of Fitness magazine and sat on what I call the "Lazy Bike" (recumbent bike) for a very easy 25 minutes of reading and biking. I felt very itchy being at the gym and not doing something worthwile, but at least my legs were moving, although not very purposefully, and I was able to get out a little bit of my energy. Luckily I have class tonight and a few tv shows to watch, but I am not quite sure what to do with all this lingering energy I have from being so well rested and not rushed, anyone want some baked goods? I am taking requests!!!