HELLO, taper!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously I cannot believe I made it this far. The TAPER!!!!!! I not only survived my peak week, I ROCKED it!!! 41.29 miles! My runs this week were all consistent and strong ending with a solid 20-miler today.

I wasn't sure how it would go when I started out. It was freaking FREEZING when I started -- 43 degrees. I love the cold but that was definitely a little on the chilly side. It was also pretty windy today, especially on the shore. Running into the wind was tough but I kept telling myself that it was great training for the race.

I was a little miserable around mile 14 because I stupidly let the thought "6 more miles, a little more than an hour left" rattle around in my head. That just seemed sooooooo long after already running more than a half marathon. Thankfully, I got over it.

I didn't have any spectacularly good or bad miles, I was more or less consistent. I had 3 consecutive miles at a 10:22/mile pace. That's about as consistent as it gets!

I was working a nice sub 10:30/mile pace until I had an incident with a missing Gatorade bottle. Before I started my run I put bottles at 5, 10, and 15 miles. When I got to mile 15 and was looking for my bottle, I saw that the homeowner was doing yard work. I didn't see my bottle and I was too embarrassed to ask for it so I kept going. But at mile 16 I was really thirsty so I went into a McDonald's on the route. I was so annoyed waiting in line because I knew the clock was ticking and literally, as I took the last step up to the counter, I hit mile 17. What a difference a step can make. After I paid for the water I used the bathroom (since I was there anyway) so I ended up having two 12+ minute miles because of it. But that's really the only snag I hit. I felt as strong as I could expect to at mile 20 and, honestly, when I was done I felt like doing that extra 6.2 was not going to be impossible.

And with that -- I'm into the taper! I can honestly say that I have worked as hard as I could and that I can go into the next 3 weeks leading up to the marathon with confidence. I've followed the training program pretty much to the letter -- I only missed 4 runs in 15 weeks and 2 of those were because of my gallbladder surgery. I am prepared as I can possibly be. Now I get to enjoy the taper and hopefully feel my body rebuild, strengthen, and restore in the days leading up to the big day.

Oh, I had a massage today right after my run. I swear that girl is an artist. Were it not for a giant blood blister on my foot (which I thought about showing but I don't want to lose the few readers I have, haha), I would never know I ran 20 miles this morning.