It's Taper Time

Training Plan - 11 Km at 6:00 Actual - 11.5 Km at 5:20 Weekly - 25 Km Ok, I am officially an obsessive. I just had to know how far I ran yesterday as I suspected 14 Km was stretching it a tad. So after a bit of mucking around on Google Earth (Brilliant piece of kit down loaded "sneakily" onto my work laptop free of charge, then quickly uninstalled before LAN got suss to it) and then re-running part of the course today with my footpod it turns out to have been a 13.5 Km run. Still, pretty happy with that becuase that gives an average pace of 4:47, still enough to have kicked my Run 4 Kids time and also to give me a new 10Km PB should I put in the same performance at my next 10Km race. So enough of this speedy business, I have decided to err on the side of caution and introduce a week and a half taper starting today. So no more speedwork and apart from a long run on Sunday I will keep my training runs to about 11 Km or less. In fact tomorrow will probably just be an easy 8 Km as I have to get home and showered then off to my all important massage appointment. I want to make sure I go into Sunday week with very fresh legs. I am also going to bed a touch earlier at the moment and trying to get lot's of sleep. Now I have been told I must have more self confidence (thanks MAR, you have been a total gem) and this is very true, I don't have a history of having great self belief when it comes to sport. I have always been of the mind that if you don't set yourself up there you won't be disappointed if you fail. Well, enough loser talk, I guess you have to puff your chest out sometime, lay your goals on the line and just go for it. So you all know what time I am aiming for (1:50 to 1:55) and I will be making no excuses for myself if I don't make it. I have trained my butt off (almost literally!), I am strong, confident and ready to go :-) and I will just keep telling myself that, over and over and over again.