And now, the waiting begins

I went on my last run before the Hy-Vee Road Races half marathon today — a slow 3.25ish-mile endeavor. Nothing notable to report from it.

Tomorrow I'll ride to work, as usual, but otherwise rest up, and on Saturday, I'll be volunteering at the Run for the Trees 5K/1-mile fun run before probably just bumming around the apartment.

I really wanted to do the tree race, but it just seemed like a risky move, even when I don't have much half marathon pressure ... given that I'll likely be on my feet when I'm there, maybe it's ultimately a wash and I could have run ... but then again, standing is lower-impact.

Anyway, I've, unsurprisingly, been thinking about my weekend meals, for both before and after the race.

Saturday night dinner is looking like chicken pasta, maybe some garlic bread, and a beer (it's tradition!); Sunday breakfast could be scrambled eggs/toast or possibly blueberry pancakes.

After the race will probably be "wherever serves us fastest and cares least about how we smell" (in 2013, that was the Drake Jethro's breakfast buffet).

And now that I've wrapped up the workouts, I can lay out my race-day gear. I'm going with the standby outfit — pink T-shirt, black shorts, pink sweatband and sunglasses — and my newer Balega socks.

So that's probably it from me until next week, but I imagine I'll be posting my time on Twitter and Daily Mile, at the very least. Maybe there'll even be a sweaty selfie on Instagram afterwards, too.

Entering the taper

Sunday's 10-miler was the last significant run before the April 26 half marathon. Woo-hoo!

This route was even more race-day-specific than its predecessors; it included a loop around the Capitol as well as the hills up from Gray's Lake, from downtown to the base of Bulldog Hill and of course Bulldog Hill itself.

It was another solid, strong effort. We had some obstacles in a strong southerly wind and an early side stitch for me, but we stuck it out.

Oddly enough, I kept a better pace and attitude going up Bulldog Hill than I did at the end of my nine-miler — I don't get it, but I'll take it.

So what now?

I'd already started to scale back workouts that weren't the long run, just to save my feet a little bit, but I'll continue that.

I'll still have a longer run this coming Sunday (thinking about five miles), and I'll continue with the speedwork (just at a shorter distance).

Originally I'd thought of incorporating more yoga to keep active, but if the weather continues to grow nicer, bike rides might be more tempting.

And I'll just enjoy the dramatic spike in free time. People always talk about the taper crazies, and maybe my own memory is fading and I've ranted about them in the past, but right now I'm just glad to scale back a bit.

I am profoundly grateful for having found the right post-long-run routine to prevent stiffness ... but it definitely takes up time beyond what the run already sucked up.

Throw in eating and a shower (and, OK, the procrastination before the run!), and it often feels like the day is totally gone.

But not this Sunday!

Votes for and against tapering

Partly by accident and partly by design, taper time has come in my Dam to Dam training.

And I think the only living creature around here who is sad about it is the local FedEx guy.

My cats aren't fans of anything that keeps me out of the apartment (except maybe my job, because they're fed when I leave for it, when I return from it, and by virtue of that job). Lighter running schedule = more time with them.

Lately, I find myself agreeing with the cats' stance: Apartment time, or commuting by bike, just sounds better than running.

It's not like past half-marathon-training burnouts, where the misery of each run made me want to give up the hobby entirely — most of my efforts have been OK; the anticipation of a long and/or challenging run, however, is consistently terrifying.

My Italian adventure provided a good break from running, and at first I was glad to dive back in, but I think it was only a temporary reprieve.

I'm not sure whether to blame the lack of extended time off (two weeks at a time isn't all that long), the mental fatigue from pushing through the polar vortex that just wouldn't leave, or the timing of Dam to Dam.

As for the local FedEx guy? It seems that my midweek runs have lined up with his midweek deliveries to my apartment building, which has an open-to-the-public lobby but a locked door that leads to actual apartments.

I've returned, sweaty and out of breath, from runs a few times recently just as he's shown up to make deliveries.

I don't know what he does with the packages when I'm not there to let him in, but each time he's thanked me profusely ... and sworn that he's not deliberately showing up on days that I run.

That's good, Mr. FedEx, because soon enough, I'll be doing a LOT less of that.

Conflicting emotions about tapering

It's taper week, and I can't make up my mind how I feel about it.

On one hand, running has been a mental and physical struggle these past three months.

So I don't mind not planning my day, often around the "best" window of weather, and talking myself out the door, sometimes coming back frustrated or disappointed (or just plain uncomfortable!).

My tempering of 5K hopes probably hasn't helped, either. I suspect I'm already looking past this race to ones where I have no expectations or where I have higher hopes for better training conditions.

On the other hand, once I'm done running, I feel better mentally and physically.

There's a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, no matter how poorly I performed, and everything that follows the run is that much more pleasurable: stretching, sitting, showering, sleeping and eating. Emphasis on eating.

One thing's for sure, though. This is the least-fatigued I've ever been going into taper week, which is probably why I'm confused — all of my other tapers have come during half-marathon plans, not 5K ones.

We'll see what all this means for race day.

This is how I know race day is coming

The first sign that race day is nearing is, of course, seeing it pop up in your weather forecast.

It's still in the 10-day look, which I only put stock in if the predictions are favorable, but I'm glad that being neurotic has some sort of payoff.

The second sign is the stress dream. That came last Friday night.

In the dream — yep, I'm gonna be that person that yammers on about dreams — I was waiting for the half marathon to start with my friend Ashlee, who in the real world loves biking but dislikes running.

We had to wait, because the race course was actually just laps, and the marathoners got to go first. (In fact, did I start too early with them, and have to head back?)

But bad weather struck, and the start was delayed. Just an hour. Didn't seem bad. We went our separate ways, for some reason, and kept calling a hotline to see what was up.

I decided to pass my time at a bar/restaurant while grabbing something to eat — a hamburger or something, because it was around dinner time — and watched the radar.

Everyone agreed it looked promising. The skies were clearing. It was a false positive, though; next thing I knew, a serious storm was slamming the area, and the race director was postponing the race indefinitely.

So naturally I went to work from there. The dream co-workers greeted me with a request that I work some overtime shifts (reflection of real-life work busyness), and I responded ... by slamming a fist on the desk and yelling about how I didn't even know when the rescheduled race would be, and I'd been training for two months for this, and I'd spent X dollars on it, and I JUST WAS NOT GOING TO WORK, OK?

(This is not how I behave at work in real life. I promise.)

As far as stress dreams go, it's not a bad one. No forgetting things, no showing up naked, no oversleeping. I'm sure the latter will terrorize me on the night before, keeping me tossing and turning.

It just exaggerates the very mild, very normal race-week nerves I'm developing: Oh crap, I paid to run 13.1 miles soon.

Ugh.

Do I dare believe?

Back when I was still doing long runs for training — seems so long ago, as I lounge on the couch! — I was conversing with a fellow Scoop Chaser about my progress.

I don't remember which run I'd most recently done: the nine-miler at 9:30, the 10-miler at 9:36 or the 11-miler at 9:23. But whatever one it was, it prompted Zach to ask about my race time target.

I gave him the same tired line I've clung to since registering for the race, that is, just keeping it at or under 9:45 so that I'd beat my previous PR. Can't sustain those paces, blah blah blah.

Though I don't recall his exact response, I do remember the gist of it: "Sure you can. You just did."

This conversation came back to me courtesy of a recent Competitor.com post that asked whether your marathon goal pace is too slow.

I expected the same mushy argument that adrenaline will carry you, which turned out to be wrong in my first half marathon; race-day excitement can't overcome peanut-butter-related GI crises.

Instead, I found hard science. If you taper, your muscles will be fully rested, and your glycogen stores will be topped off. And you're likely to be better fueled during the race, because you don't have to be your own water/Gatorade/Gu station.

All of this — not loosey goosey pep talks — prompted me to reconsider my self-deprecation. Zach's right, Competitor is right ... and my hidden ambition is probably right, too.

Back in January, I boldly declared that I wanted to run a half marathon in 2:05:00, which would mean 9:30 miles.

Once training started, I mentally retreated from that for a handful of reasons: I didn't want to jinx myself, even though I didn't really believe I could do it; I didn't want to build myself up for other people; and I didn't want to experience the letdown of falling far short on race day.

Yet all this time, I've been plugging my long run results into the race pace calculator to see what could happen. The answers have nourished dreams of PRing by far more than a handful of seconds.

With two days to go, do I believe? Do I believe that I trained well and rested well; do I believe that I have the right equipment to pace myself and refuel myself; do I believe that I can talk myself through some discomfort and, no matter what race day brings, be proud of the work that I'd done leading up to it?

I believe all of that, without question. Which means that, beyond superstition and a habit of pessimism, there's no reason I shouldn't believe I can finish minutes under my PR.

The last workout before race day

Today was my last run before Sunday's half marathon.

That meant that I put on one outfit, set aside another for race day — and dumped all the rest, including the long-sleeved shirts and tights, into the laundry basket.

(I have many reasons to look forward to the race, and one of those is washing a somewhat overdue load of workout clothes. And once those are washed, I have a strong hunch that the winter clothes will stay clean for a loooooong time.)

The good news is that because Sunday's still forecast to be sunny and pleasant, I can wear my favorite running outfit — pink T-shirt, black shorts and the newest pair of Balega socks — and also, as a co-worker pointed out, not succumb to the temptation of bundling up because of how cold waiting can get.

Judging from the easy three-miler and post-run foam rolling, my taper is doing exactly what it should do.

I didn't even really try that hard during the run — OK, on that long, steady upward slope, I did have to try — and still kept a 9:36 pace.

When I stretched, it felt nice but not massage-nice, like it does when I'm fatigued, and when I used the foam roller, only the most finicky of spots complained. Which then prompted me to realize that my muscles haven't ached in a few days.

So I'm physically ready. All that's left is to pick up my packet, find my way to the start line without parking illegally and not mentally freak out over the idea that I'm going to run 13.1 miles at a time I'm almost always still in bed, with the last mile or so being a hill.

No big deal, right?

This will be me for the next few days

The grandparents are coming to Des Moines to visit me and Dusty this weekend, so I've lined up the rest days over my taper weeks with their visit.

For the next few days, instead of being the jogger in this comic strip, I'll be the woman on the bench. My sandwich will likely be from Jethro's. Maybe, if the family and I are lucky, we'll even have sunshine instead of wind, rain and clouds.

Happy restful weekend to everyone!

Sorry, Hal: I'm not running 12 miles this weekend

During my half marathon career, I've stuck with Hal Higdon training plans, and I've been mostly pleased with the results.

One question I've had, though has been growing more persistent as I gain more experience, read more about running and talk more to other runners: Why do long runs continue to add distance right up to race day?

Just about everyone else suggests weaning yourself off the long run in the final few weeks. Not Hal.

I've kept faith with Hal, though, for varying reasons: Because at some point, we're all noobs and follow the first voice we hear. Because I wanted confirmation that I could run longer than 10 miles. Because the previous long run had been awful, so I wanted redemption. Because I think of myself as running better while a little tired than super-rested.

This time around, after I'd finished the 11-miler with a little more than two weeks until race day, it was that long runs had gone so well, I wanted another triumph and the satisfaction of a hard day's work — plus practice in actual springlike weather.

It doesn't look like that weather will arrive in time for the days on which I can do the 12-miler, but that's OK: I've changed my mind and won't be doing another double-digit run.

Don't think this is a total rejection of Hal; this is just an agreement to disagree.

Leading up to my first half marathon, I had a bad encounter with two loose dogs that scared me past tapering into becoming a couch potato, and I could definitely feel the rust. Since then, I've been leery of tapering — and I think that's the underlying reason behind my dedication to Hal's persistent long runs.

The pre-5K taper plan seems to have paid off; a PR is irrefutable proof that proper tapers work.

And, as it stands right now, all of my previous diligence — a personal best — has paid off tremendously, and I feel both physically and mentally prepared.

So why pile on more miles than necessary? I have no nagging injuries, but there are the occasional aches, pains, stiffness and soreness that could probably be eased or avoided by easing up a bit.

No hard feelings, Hal. It's just that your novice is growing up, and she knows that it's OK to disregard advice if it doesn't work. (Peanut butter before long runs, I am glaring hatefully at you.) Just don't say "I told you so" if I fall flat on my face April 28.