6 days to go: cloudy with a chance of taper madness!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at marathon week. Please make sure your seatbelts are securely fastened, all negative thoughts are securely stowed, and if you feel like your legs are not functioning properly, do not be alarmed. We recommend that you commence carbo loading, easy running, hydrating, and resting at this time. Remember how many miles you have come to reach this point, we are now making our final approach. Sit back, relax, and we will be landing shortly....

OK, that was kind of cheesy I know...but I mean...its the week of the marathon. Things are bound to get a little crazy. Wait...I need to repeat that again..THE BAYSTATE MARATHON IS IN 6 DAYS!!!

Oh my lord. I just can't believe that after all of the training that it's actually, finally, here. EEK! And I feel like I am definitely showing some signs of taper madness, namely: random twinges/muscle pains/general odd sensations coming from my legs, a general feeling of laziness (like yesterday, when I had to run for a measly 20 minutes!), and the need to consume any carbohydrate based food in sight and never be more than 12 inches from my Nalgene bottle.

Strangely enough, after all this time spent not following any sort of plan in my training, I am (kind of) following a plan for taper! Since my general running mantra is "run hard. all the time.", I needed someone to tell me how to run easy, and one of the GBTC women who is running Baystate sent out a link to the Pfitz taper plan...sounded pretty perfect to me! So my last "workout" was Wednesday, I went to the reservoir with Kelly and we did some pretty fast 800s, but only 6 of them and with realllly easy jogging in between. Saturday was the last "long" run, 13 miles at a really easy pace, and other than that,it's just been 3 miles here, 5 miles there, all at as easy of a pace as I can muster.

I got REALLY freaked out on Thursday, when my hip was really bugging me even on an easy half hour run. I literally came home and cried...pathetic, I know, but all I could think of was that it was some kind of catastrophic injury and it was going to ruin my race and on and on. Hello, taper madness much?? Because the next day it was just a little sore, and it's been no problem the past two days...so I think the moral of the story is I need to stop freaking out about every little ache and pain at the moment. One of my friends who is majoring in athetic training was telling me that when you drop intensity it can be just as weird on your body as if you suddenly ramp it up, and so there can be some random pains as things adjust...so talking to her calmed me down quite a bit. :)

My running buddy and I called our last 13 miler our whining run...both of our legs felt like crap and we just decided that we might as well whine on this "short" long run and think about how hilarious it was that 13 miles was "short" for us now. My favorite thing that happened was when we passed a little kid who was whining and crying about something, and as we passed his mom goes "See, look at these girls, they're up early and they're running, and I don't see them complaining about it!" I told my running buddy and she was like..uh..yeah, she didn't see us 10 minutes ago! But I guess I knew it was really an easy long run when I had the energy to dance around my apartment to techno music during our Badger pregame (3:30 kickoff? Amazing.), stand for 3 hours during the game (which was...uh...not pretty...oh, how I hate Ohio State), and even do Jump Around after the 3rd quarter. Needless to say, I will NOT be doing such intensive physical activity at this Saturdays game...nor will I be consuming any adult beverages. ;)

So, what are my exciting plans for the next 6 days? Well, posting here every day, most likely, since I have all this extra free time.
-Easy running.
-A "dress rehearsal" on Wednesday with Kelly, complete with race day outfits and lemon lime -Gatorade (gotta make sure it goes down smooth!)
-Obsessing over the weather (current race day forecast, partly cloudy with a high of 53). -Listening to "Don't Stop Believin'" on repeat.
-Trying to figure out if I own a throwaway shirt to ditch at the beginning of the race or if I can McGyver some armwarmers.
-Staring at my Gu packet and thinking about how delicious its going to taste during the race. -Freaking out about my wardrobe.
-Freaking out about my pace.
-Having nightmares about missing BQing by 4 seconds (this happened the other night, don't worry).
-Making the BF do things for me because "I need to rest my legs". :)
-Eating a lot of pasta...like, absurd quantities.
-Getting ready mentally, telling myself I'm going to kick ass
-Ignoring mysterious leg twinges
-Sticking and stretching every day
-Getting ready, physically and mentally, to ROCK THIS BITCH!

it's go time: 6 days!