wine and whine

So, there hasn't been much running going on around here the last few days. I wish I could say I was tapering, but tapering for a half seems kind of silly (unless you do it and it works for you). There's all kinds of info out there on how to taper for a half, the only thing they seem to have in common is that you don't need to taper for longer than the week of the race. Some say to reduce your mileage but keep the speed up. Others say to reduce mileage and do all runs at an easy pace that week. As usual, I'm doing whatever I want to. I haven't followed a training plan so far, why bother following a taper plan?

I don't really have any good excuses for not running. Saturday I was just busy having fun doing other things. And Paul has been working like crazy so that kind of makes doing any longer runs hard. You all know how much I hate pushing Lorelei in that stroller.

On Sunday I just sucked it up and ran a little over 4 miles while pushing her. I told myself I was just going to go slow and take it easy even though there's really nothing easy about running and pushing over half your body weight in front of you. That plan worked for a little while and then I saw another runner. I rarely ever see other people out running around here. I didn't mean to, but I realized I was catching up to them and then before i knew it I had passed them. I couldn't slow down at that point and have them pass me, so I just kept at that uncomfortable pace until I lost them. I also gave myself an asthma attack. Dumb.

Last weeks pathetic total: 22 miles. I hope those rest days did me some good. My foot seems a bit less grouchy most of the time.

Today I did another 4 miles at the gym. I wanted to do more but there was not time before the kids area closed. I was planning to run them at my goal pace for the half, which is about 9 min, but I needed more of a warm up than I planned on. And running on the treadmill always feels harder to me.

Plan of attack for the rest of the week is to get a few more shorter, easy runs in, and then take Friday, maybe Thursday also, off to rest. I'll be working on my mental race strategy as well. I know at some point the running will be hard since I have a time goal, and I'll want to slow down and feel sorry for myself. I'll also have no familiar faces in the crowd to look forward to and give me a little boost. It's just going to be me and my thoughts, surrounded by strangers for 13.1 miles.

On that note, tonight I'm going to have some wine with all my whine. I am aware this post has taken a turn for the whiney. It happens. I'll try harder next time.

Next time I'll give you this recipe I came up with out of desperation. It was good.

And here's something cute, just so you come back. Just look at that face. And that shirt.