Well, here we are. The taper. The period of time where 3 or so weeks before marathon day (depending on your training schedule) you slash your mileage by about 50% and try to get rest and gear up psychologically for the big day.

Now on Saturday, when I finished my 20 miler, I would have told you (wait, I think I DID tell you) that I love the taper! It signifies the end of the really hard work and that the peak mileage is over and done with. It seems like it should be a time of great satisfaction and calm. Ya know, because I’ve done all the training runs and will be completely prepared to run 26.2 miles on race day.

But the truth is, the taper period FREAKS ME OUT. I don’t know what to do with myself without a big training run coming up, I start to doubt my abilities, I start to think I’ll never be able to finish, everyone will be faster than me, and I’ll most likely trip and they’ll run out of water and I won’t be able to sleep and I’ll be late to the start and I’ll finish last or they’ll close the course on me or my stomach won’t feel right or I’ll eat too much the night before or I’ll over sleep or . . . . .

Yup. It’s THAT psycho. So you live on faith during the taper. Faith that you’re prepared. Faith that your body is going to do what it should. Faith that the travel details will all work out. Sometimes I envy my truly insane friends who run major races almost every weekend. The nerves, I would imagine, never really have time to develop full blown because the races are so close together. You just DO – you don’t THINK.

But I’ve never been very good at that. I am the queen of over-thinking and anxiety. Honestly, it’s one of the reasons why I run – so that maybe, just maybe, I will get a little further down the path of trusting God and trusting myself. So I will be patient and allow the next 2 weeks and 3 days to be whatever they are. I’m ready. And if I’m not, it will make one heck of a blog, right??

Happy Running!!

Jen