Its just about time again to taper for the Baltimore Marathon on October 10th .. I wrapped up a 6.5 mile speed workout this morning, in the chilly air, and feel i’m ready to wind it down again. I’ve noticed that along with October, comes marathon season and the slew of people tapering for their marathon .. I’ve noticed a lot of folks coming to my blog searching for tapering tips … so by looking at the marathons coming up in the next couple weeks, the larger ones I know about that people might be tapering for include:

1. Baltimore Marathon(10/10/09) — I’ll be there
2. Steamtown Marathon (10/11/09)
3. Chicago Marathon (10/11/09)
4. Breakers Marathon(RI) (10/18/09)
5. Columbus Marathon (10/18/09)
6. Detroit Marathon (10/18/09)
7. Hartford Marathon (10/10/09)
8. Portland Marathon (10/4/09) — THIS WEEKEND!!
9. Indianapolis Marathon (10/17/09)

If I didn’t list your marathon .. please post a comment and i’ll add it … I love hearing about the smaller marathons (like the Lehigh Valley Health Network marathon). Thats probably the one thing that will be hard about Baltimore, is all the people. I remember the shock I had at the Marine Corps Marathon last year with 30,000+ people. So anyway, if looking for tapering tips brought you here, i’ll post my revised list of tips over the weekend as I prepare to head into the final week before Baltimore.

So I woke up groggy again this morning like I did on Wednesday, and i’m not sure why… maybe its the cooler mornings that’s getting me. I needed to get some speed work in, and although i’m not worried so much about how fast I run, the goal was to do interval training at 800m distances .. and I did pretty good compared to last week, so I think I wrapped the week up pretty good (or at least as I planned to).

There is certainly one thing that motivated today .. I came across a picture from my first marathon of the season, struggling in mile 25 .. I just had to share this painful shot of me. I was really hoping that the photographer didn’t snap this shot, but apparently they did. I do somehow remember her sitting there at the end of the race (hence the reason I was looking down, to avoid it because I knew it’d be tough to look at).

If the sheer look of pain is not enough to motivate anybody to focus on the training, keep with your pace, and stay hydrated .. then i don’t know what else would do it. Its seriously a reminder to me of that day, and how important it is to take marathon running seriously. It also reminds me to take it easy during tapering.. I really did TOO much, for TOO long last time a few weeks back, and I don’t intend to make that mistake again.

So anyway, i’ll rest tomorrow and have an easy weekend as i head into the week of the marathon. Running a marathon on a Saturday will be a different for me, i’ve never done one on a Saturday, but I think the fact I have a full day to recover before heading back to work on the 12th is a good thing… i’m sure i’ll need it.