Marathon Training week 16

This was the first full week of actual tapering after last Sunday’s 22 mile long run that I stupidly did at basically MGP.  I mean, at least I know for a FACT that I can do it, but still, not the smartest thing I’ve done.  Not that I’m actually known for doing smart things while marathon training.  But I’m getting better about it, I swear!  So, my mileage this past week was cut a good amount since I’m now in taper mode.  Needless to say, I LOOOOOVE running and I love running lots of miles.  But, I like to dial it back before I get burnt out like I did last year.  Not that I got burnt out because I was running lots of miles.  I got burn out, I think, because it wasn’t challenging and it was super hot and yea…running wasn’t fun last summer at all.  Anyway, I was starting to feel the inklings of the possibility of being burnt out, so the taper came at the exact right moment! 

• Tuesday: nothing, worked overtime Monday night.

• Wednesday: 4 mile shakeout run.  I needed a nice easy run after Sunday’s ridiculousness of a long run.  Ha!  It felt great, but my calves are being twingey and the part of my ankle that I sprained so badly last year (the strap that goes across the front of the ankle, not sure if it’s a ligament or tendon, but leaning toward it’s a ligament) started hurting and aching.  So I’m stretching it out.  It’s probably just the taper.  I’ve never had it before where I got aches and pains due to the drop in and relaxing of the weekly mileage before, but that’s the only thing that makes sense.

• Thursday: nothing, worked overtime Wednesday night.

• Friday: nothing, worked overtime again Thursday night.

• Saturday: this was supposed to be a double header of races.  However I got my very first DNS (did not start) because I’m occasionally dumb and I mixed up the race start time with the packet pickup start time.  I thought that packet pickup started at 4pm…nope the race started at 4pm.  I discovered my error at 5pm when I was getting ready to head to the race.  Wah wah.  So, just one race this day, but a great race it was (I know, I know, I owe you guys so many race recaps right now.  I’ve written them all, I just need to post them…but, stay tuned for the race report in this instance again if you want more deets).  The Hill Country Halloween Half Marathon.  It was a fantastic run in full costume, including facepaint!

• Sunday: nothing, went to the renaissance festival.

• Monday: nothing, played hookie from running…slept in instead. 

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So, this was a fairly uneventful week of running for me.  Good kick off to my taper!  As the week went on, the twinges in my calves and the aches in my ankle where I sprained it subsided, so my assumption that they were taper related was most likely justified and correct.

Total miles for week #16: 16.85