Friday, October 4, 2013

The Beginning of the End

The title sounds so ominous.  Dun dun dun!

Lori speaking! We are just over two weeks away from the half marathon.  These past few weeks have been the peak of my training.  I say "my" training instead of "our" training because Logan is still not able to run very far on his injured foot.  My long runs have been pretty lonely and boring without him!  But he has been keeping up on his cardio (elliptical is his new friend) and still hopes to be able to run the half marathon, although he may have to take it slower than he would have liked.  We will keep you posted!



My last really long run before the half marathon will be Sunday.  I plan to run at least 10 miles, which is what I ran last week, and possibly run as far as 12 miles depending on how I'm feeling at the time.  After that last really long run, I get to start my "taper" for the race!  For those of you who are not aware, the taper occurs the couple of weeks before a race and involves a big reduction in the amount of running you do so your body can recover and be in tip-top running shape for the race.

I am looking forward to the taper.  In fact, confession time, I have taken it a little easier this week than I have past weeks and have justified it by saying "Well, I am ALMOST tapering."  I guess I am just tapering for my  taper.

That's legit, right?


It is crazy to think that all of the hard training that intimidated me only a couple of months ago is now almost over!  I ran 10 miles, and that isn't so far away from the 13 I will be doing soon.  Trust me when I say that I am not a natural runner.  My roommates in my first year at grad school (shout-out to Karen and Jenny!) would go out for runs and I would sometimes join them...and usually feel like dying at the end.  Karen would tease that I needed one of those "Running Sucks" shirts to wear because of how much I hated running at the time.  My roommates motivated my first running goal of making it through two miles of running without stopping.  I had the same mentality then that I do now when I set out for my long runs - it doesn't matter how slow I go, I am going to make it X many miles.

Now that it is the beginning of the end I am getting a little nostalgic and thinking about the beginning of the beginning.

For those of you who need a little motivation check out this video.



Question of today:  What have you improved on in your life during the past six months?