Tapering down

three weeks ago, I ran 20 miles, which was the longest run I was supposed to do during training.  I was successful and rewarded myself by going to the beach. 

Last weekend I didn't run beause I was vacationing in Maine and the running coach just said to "Taper off" but I didn't get clarification what that meant until after I got back.  This week I went to my normal schedule and found myself running faster but I started geting sore again.  Not sure what to make of this.  The 12 mile run today went really well.  It was 6 minutes faster than the pace I run my medium runs (8 miles).  I have recently switched from G1 packets to GU energy shots, and given today's run and my medium run on Wednesday being 2 minutes faster than my best time to date, it appears to be working.  I'm really surprised by this to be honest. 

As my last post was right before I hit a wall, I'll briefly go into that.  The week after my 12 mile run, I tried going 14 as that's what the schedule called for.  At 12, I had to stop to walk, I figured it was just a bad day but the next week when I was to run 16, it happened again.  So, I tapped out and started drinking water.  I also asked the 2 people I know who have run marathons and a girl that runs double digit miles for fun for advice.  They said to eat the night beore and run on a near empty stomach.  Before I tried to carb up an hour and a half before the runs, but apparantly that's not how you do it.  It worked! The week after the 16, it was scaled back to 14 again and I was able to run it without stopping after spending the night before eating Italian and Thai food..and a lot of it.  Since then I've ran 16, 18, & 20, 12 following the carbing up strategy.  I felt a lot of pain in the 18 mile but not so much the 20.  Not sure why that was but I was happy to finish. 

They say if you can run 20, you can run a marathon because your body goes on auto-pilot muscle memory alone mode that carry you for the remainig 6.2 miles.  with that logic, I'm ready.  I'm very skeptical of this though but so was my friend when she ran hers but she became a believer on race day.  Maybe I will too....I hope so. 

Today was the last long run of training.  Now, I just have a normal week, than a week of only short runs beore the marathon.  I can't wait to get it over with, but I'm still nervous despite hitting all my benchmarks.  I don't think I will update this before the marathon so hopefully I finish. 

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