1st Marathon Sunday, Taper Madness, My Taper Run Times are in the TOILET!

This, my friend, is why tapers suck.

You're going to do fine, good luck!

You'll be fine. Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

p.s. - GREAT job with your training over the past few months .

Hang in there dude

During taper, their are at least 2 voices in our heads:

1). Looks at every little Niggle, Weather Report and Training run and says, "Nope, we are not ready yet to run a marathon. (We are going to Stall/Spin/Crash/Burn/Die) Safe Return Doubtful."

2). Looks at how we feel during taper with increased energy, legs with little fatigue, and an increase in excitement about the race and says, "Hey, Lets go for the BQ,NYQ,OlyQ,Sub-3 etc. We have what it takes to go out fast and hold the pace for the distance".

We all become an ego-maniac with an Inferiority Complex during taper time. It is just a normal part of the whole experience. Our brains run on Glycogen stored in the liver and so has been in pretty much a constant state of starvation for most of our training cycle.

Now during taper, it suddenly is bathed in energy rich blood and quickly responds with all sorts of interesting (If not wacky) ideas about all manner of things.

In the end, The two voices always converge and provide us with our "Fallback Goal" and our "Stretch Goal". In the middle is right about where our race performance ends up most often.

Good luck and have a blast Scott. You have trained really well for this race and regardless of the outcome on race day, your training cycle has been very successful.

Cheers

So for the 500th time, and I'm glad the smart/experienced folks are with me on this one:

You are EXACTLY where you should be.

This IS how long tapers go. It's not an anomaly. It actually means you are GREAT and you are going to be GREAT.

You will be surprised at how everything comes together on marathon day. You are perfectly prepared. Don't do anything differently now. You are IN your peak.

Yup, classic taper madness.

Eat right, get lots of rest and trust in the 1,200+ miles you've run and you'll be really surprised how well you do Sunday!  Stick with the training plan.  Even throw in a few short 100m "strides" during one or two runs to loosen things up and get the speed going again.

You've worked really hard towards this and you just need to trust in the training and run smart.  Don't go out too fast when on race morning you feel awesome.  Stay with your plan and sub-4 will be a simple thing for you!

*SMACK*

There, hopefully that snaps you out of it, and you start listening to all of us..... 

Relax.  You'll do fine.  The hay is in the barn.  All that's left is to run a smart race on Sunday.  So enjoy the week, try to stay busy.

Makes mine faster!  Denser O2 content in each breath and all that ....

Wasn't this the same guy who was going to give up running entirely just a few short TAN-threads ago?

You'll be fine!  Trust your training.  And realize how fresh those legs will feel!

Here is the big thing to remember, do NOT sprint the first mile of the marathon, no matter how good you feel or what ever one else is doing.  Stick to your planned pace.

Your taper is fine, just the pre race Taper anxiety. 

x2 or +1

Dude, your weather report is the same as mine for the race.

I am going with a Tri Suit (For the Pockets) with a throw away short sleeve shirt and arm warmers on top. Gonna pull on a Trashbag for Pre-Race Warmup and will likely chuck it just as the race starts. (Also Throw away gloves)

Am also going to wear fleece leg warmers to the start along with a hoodie but will ditch them in my dropoff bag before the race starts.

Just be sure if you do over-dress, that your wearing something you can ditch and you will still have something underneath.

I agree with Rick, the cold will make you faster but remember not to go out too freakin fast at the start. There are a lot of little hills early in this race that will make you pay dearly later in the race if you try to blast over them. (Just run even effort, slower up and a bit faster down)

The whole last half of the race is downhill/flat and you can push the pace as hard was you want when you get there

Lucky for me, my race has no tricky sections; just a 26.2 mile bombing run to the finish line ~2,000 ft below the start line. I am told that even splits are the way to run this one.

As for gel options, I don't know if I would recommend this, but a guy over on RT uses that spray adhesive and sprays it onto his thighs and sticks them in place.

This has the addded avantage of providing a handy place to "Stick" other things if need be (Chapstick, Gloves, Sticks of Gum). Not sure what the post-race cleanup would be like

Oh, and he is a cyclist so no hair yanking is required to pull off the packets of Gu. (Yeah, the dude is a freak)

Yeah, that is prolly a better choice