Starting my taper

Yesterday afternoon I ran my last long training run before next month's half-marathon - 13.1 miles. My first time running that far all in one day. I didn't exactly have to, since my training plan gave me some wiggle room by suggesting 11-13 miles, but I wanted to. I am (finally?) learning that I do much better in a competition situation if I have already proven I can do it, whatever it is. In tennis, that means I have more confidence coming back from being down in a game or a set now that I have done precisely that several times; I know it can be done, that I have done it, and that takes away some of the nerves. In running, it means that I feel better about running a distance in a race when I have done it at least once in practice and have a baseline PR to shoot for. The first time I ran a race as an adult (ie not in junior high track), it was a 5K, and I hadn't really run that far yet, and never outdoors in the weather conditions that we had on race day. That meant I was miserable during the last half of the race, because the high humidity and temperature were nothing like the gym, and while I knew I could finish, I wasn't able to stay as strong as I wanted to all the way to the end. So, now that I have run 13.1 miles, in weather that could very well be the way it will be on race day, I feel pretty good.

Not from my 13.1 run yesterday - I wasn't smiling that much at the end!

Now I start to taper, which means progressively less running for the next few weeks, so that my legs are fresher for the start of the race. I hope I don't get too grouchy now that I am running less!

All this is the long way to say that I am still fundraising for brain cancer research, and you can still contribute. I am running with team #NotToday, which was set up by my friends Charlee and Jeremy Hinton as a way to make a difference after Jeremy was diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor in April 2014. You can find more information and donate here. Just make sure to use the blue and yellow "Make a Donation" button so your donation goes to our team.

Thank you!