Milwaukee Marathon Half Marathon Training Week 18: THE TAPER + Race Goals

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Another Mother Runner just sent me an e-newsletter with "tips for the taper" or something to that nature, and I was happy to see that I have been following most of them for this taper.  My number one priority for the week was to get sleep.  I am happy to report that my sleep so far this week has been all "green circles" (best rating in the Sense sleep system) and that my average amount of sleep was over 8 hours.

My goal for running was follow the plan and no run under 8:00 avg.  I did ok with this.  My throat has been feeling better with each passing day.  I'm still snot rockets and loogies, but hopefully that won't be too much of an issue.

Here is my taper week in review:

Monday, October 9
Plan says: 5 miles

What I do:  Given that sleep was a priority for me this week, I had no qualms about shutting off my 5 AM alarm and getting this done after work before the bus arrived.  It was one of those taper runs where you feel so tired and your mind starts going, "How am I going to run 13 miles at a much faster pace than this in less than week?"  Luckily for me, I have at least one of these types of runs with every taper so I know better.

5 miles, 38:51 (7:46 avg pace)

Tuesday, October 10
Plan says: 5 miles easy

What I do:  Another day where I shut off the early morning alarm and then drove home from work in pouring rain.  Sometimes I will gut it out and get the run in, other times, I will take the break. I was really tired all day on Tuesday so I made the switch to make Tuesday my rest day.

0 miles.

Wednesday, October 11
Plan says: Rest

What I do:   Actually get out of bed with the 5 AM alarm.  I went to bed early on Tuesday night because I was so tired so it wasn't too difficult to get out of bed.  It was lightly raining but as I mentioned last week, if I don't run on Wednesday morning, I won't get the opportunity for the rest of the day.

5.07 miles, 41:07 (8:07 avg pace)

Thursday, October 12
Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I do:  My son woke up at 3:30.  So I tossed and turned for almost an hour and a half and fell back asleep right before my 5 AM alarm so I don't even remember shutting it off.   I ended up going for a run after the kids were in bed, which is something I have not done in a LOOOOOONG time.  It was actually really fun and I had to reign the pace in because I kept thinking that it was go time!  Getting excited!!!!

6.2 miles, 49:17 (7:57 avg)

Friday, October 13
Plan says: 5 miles easy

What I do: 5 miles in the rain (again).

5 miles, 38:05 (7:37 avg pace)

Saturday, October 14
Plan says: 3 miles easy

What I do:  3 miles, in the rain (again).

3 miles, 23:43 (7:53 average)

Plan Miles: 24
Total Weekly Miles: 24.27

I have logged 614.47 miles in the past 18 weeks. That is almost double what I ran last year in the 18 weeks leading up to my last half marathon, where I set a PR.  A PR that I am hoping to break on Sunday!  Though I am running the same event as last year, the race went through a makeover and new management since last year and while the course is largely the same, it is slightly different.  

The weather looks to be ok.  The temps look great - high 40s/low 50s.  The one thing we all will have to contend with is wind and probably more rain, but the course doesn't go in any one direction for too long so there will be breaks.

So goals.  If I am feeling good:

A goal: Ideally, I want to run in 1:28 land.

B goal:   PR.  I need to run faster than 1:29:22 to do this. 

C goal:  Break 1:30

I realize these goals leave the space wide open for disappointment because they are SO close together time-wise AND they are all times.  Ideally I would have a process goal in there...but I don't.

Plan
I plan on running the first one to three miles in the 6:50 zone to test it out and go from there.  I ran the first seven in the 6:50-7:00 range last year, kicked it into around 6:30s for the next 4 and then tried to hold on until the end.   I want to test out pace in the first few miles on the conservative side but don't want to get stuck there.

I plan on using Gen UCan before the race and then fueling with Gu on mile 5 and 10.  I used no Gu last year, but this is mostly mental for me as I did every 5 miles in my spring marathon and really liked that plan.

I am really tired while writing this. I was with my kids all day and we did a lot, which was dumb of me but I had them by myself so I wanted to wear them out so they would go to bed good and sleep through the night!  I am off to foam roll and hydrate!