Taper Phase

Man must have created the whole idea of training for and running a marathon, but I know for sure that God had His hand on the "Taper Phase" of training. It is awesome! I have run an amazing number of miles and spent many, many hours running, walking, taken many ice baths, and consumed enough Advil and Aleve to stop a young horse, but everything is coming down to these next 10 days.

The "taper phase" of marathon training is when I basically stop running and feel all the pain and suffering my joints, muscles, and tendons have gone through these last 15-17 weeks. My running plan for this week was to run 5 miles on Tuesday, 6 miles today, 4 miles on Thursday, with a "long" run of 8 miles this weekend. Next week is about the same, I will run 2-3 days next week with extremely low mileage, but end the weekend with 26.2 miles.

I owe a huge thanks to everyone that has kept me in your prayers during the training and to those that have given money to both the American Liver Foundation and the American Brain Tumor Association. There is a shirt designed for me to wear on the way home from Chicago with everyone's name that aided to my fundraising. I'll put a link to the shirt on the site in the next couple days.