The Boston Taper

Yesterday I ran a 30k race as part of my last long run before Boston. I ran this race during my first 20 miler towards Mississuaga last spring, raced it fairly hard, and that worked out well for me. Doing it as my last long run this year, I dunno. The weather was stunning and I did manage to keep myself reigned in enough that at least I didn't go anywhere near my previous finish times. I did 2 slow miles before it started, ran the race just a bit slower than marathon pace, then another 2 1/2 slow miles immediately afterwards. I was all over the wall in the cooldown jog. Don't ask me why but when I bonk I get a big bright spot that shows up in the middle of my vision, and it was glowing pretty good at the end of it all. But I was upright and not suffering badly from a running perspective.

Now comes taper. Not sure how to handle this week. I'll try a little jaunt tomorrow and see how my legs are. I had a blister on my baby toe that I didn't notice until late last night when I smashed it against the corner of our sofa. Ideally this week, I go easy for a couple of days, get 8-10 miles in on Thursday and scrape up a 2 hour run on Sunday. If I'm hurting I'll just have to cut it all back until I'm strong again, hopefully no later than this time next week. My only real concern is that yesteday's runs only had me on my feet for 3:15 when I really wanted to be out there around 3:25. Odd for a race but I'd rather have finished 10 minutes slower than I did. On the other hand I never sat down or stood still between arriving at the race site at 8 am until I got back in my car at almost 1, maybe that will help.

After all this I sure hope there's 26 good miles in these skinny little legs of mine.