Taper Lazies

It's taper time!  I ran my last "long" run of 15 miles just over a week ago.  15 miles felt pretty great after weeks of 16's, 18's, and a 20!  I ran the 15 miles pretty close to marathon pace with a couple of fast miles at the end and it felt really good and gave me a huge confidence boost.  Not all of my long runs have felt great, actually a couple of them felt downright miserable.  My last two put my head back in the right place, and I feel like I'm ready to head out and PR (and hopefully BQ) this coming weekend at the Baystate Marathon in Lowell, MA!

Lots of people despise taper time.  I'm really not one of them.  After months of training I look forward to a couple weeks of lower mileage and resting up my achy legs.  The only thing I don't like about it is during the last week when I cut out strength training and I'm only running 3-4 miles runs, that makes me feel LAZY!  However, I'm going to use that time to get more cleaning done around the house, get more walks in with my girls, and maybe squeeze in a little more reading time (who am I kidding, its possible I may just spend a lot more time obsessing about the marathon!) How do you handle taper?  Do you like it or hate it?

Here is an article about WHY you should taper:
http://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/its-taper-time?page=single


You NEED to taper, it is just as important as your weekly long runs during training.  If you read the article you will see why.  I have trouble running slower than my natural pace.  During this final week I am going to really try to run SLOW!  Times like this I wish I had a running buddy to force me to slower my pace.  I know I will benefit from it, but have such a hard time putting that into practice.  Anyone else?

Here is this weeks schedule:

M-Rest
T-3 miles, 3 strides
W-4 miles @ Marathon pace
Th-4 miles
Fri.-Rest
Sat.-15 minute jog
Sun.-RACE DAY!

I may not get a chance to run the 3 scheduled for today, if that happens I will not be making it up I will just make sure I get Wednesday and Thursdays runs in!