Weeks 20 and 21.... taper time and a new toy!

Oh. My. Goodness. The marathon is only 8 days away. I can't believe how quickly time has flown! I have been in the taper phase for the last 2 weeks, and I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it. It's nice to not have to run such long distances anymore. But at the same time, I am overwhelmed with feelings of doubt - how can running LESS make me better prepared for running the longest distance of my life? Of course, I know the science behind tapering and it all makes perfectly good sense. My own self-doubt, however, cannot be squelched with science. Can I really run 26.2 miles? All at once? Am I really ready for this? My coach says I am. He calls all of us on the team "athletes". I love that. I'm an athlete! *stands proudly*

So last weekend we had a mere 100 minute run. All of my teammates were at practice on Saturday (Dec 23) - it was great! I ran with teammate Rae Marie, and it was so nice having someone to talk to. The time passes so much faster that way. She sure had lots of funny stories to tell about her son. :-) Before I knew it, the run was over.

Today (Dec 30), we had a 60 minute run. Erin, my other teammate, was there today, and she, coach Brad, and I all ran together. It was awesome - lots of conversation. A great final practice to finish up our team training. Today, I also had the opportunity to try out a new toy that Santa brought me for Christmas... my Nike+ iPod system. It's basically a sensor that attaches to your shoe and transmits distance/speed data to your iPod Nano. I figured I'd try it right out of the box without calibrating, to see how close it was. Turns out - not so close. I set it for a 60 minute timed workout (and it was really cool because a woman's voice would come on every 5 minutes to tell me how long I had been running or how long I had left). But it said I ran 6.17 miles in that 60 minutes, which I know isn't possible. I don't run that fast even on really good days. And I know the route we ran was about 5 miles. So yeah, a pretty big discrepancy. I attribute it to my pretty short stride length. No big deal - the thing can be calibrated and that's what I intended to do...

So on my way home, I stopped at the Metamora High School track and calibrated my Nike+ system. It was really easy - I just ran a lap around the track, and then walked a lap - so it was calibrated for both running and walking. We'll see if that makes a difference next time I go out for a run. :)

In the mean time... here's the really nifty graph I got from uploading my workout data from my iPod to my computer:


Cool, huh? This will be a nifty little gadget for all my running. The Nike+ website tracks all my running workouts and provides neat graphs and totals and averages and whatnot. Lots of data for the geek-oriented runner! I will definitely be using it during my marathon.

Speaking of my marathon... my next Blog entry will not be until after the Big Day. Hard to believe it's almost here - I'm a little nervous. But I'm also really excited. For those who want to track my race progress... Disney has a neat feature on their website that allows you to do just that. You can get updates emailed or text-messaged to you as I cross certain checkpoints on the course. Or you can see updates in real time on the website on race day. Go to this website:

Marathon Tracker

Remember, the marathon starts at 6am EST, so get up early! Fortunately, I'm a slow runner, so you'll still be able to track me even if you like to sleep in. ;-) I think all you need is my name, in order to track me. But just in case, my race # is 11834.

Thanks everyone who encouraged and supported me during my training! I couldn't have gotten this far without you. I'm going to Disney World!!!