I suck at tapering. I feel guilty when I don’t get a workout in. Of course, once that thing I trained for is done, I use it as an excuse to slack off.

There’s this fine between keeping going and overextending to the point of hurting your race. I haven’t found that line yet.

Merchants Millpond State Pond in North Carolina offers a little bit of hills and a lot of great views.

The highlight of this taper week was a 6.4-mile hike/run at a state park near our home. The hills weren’t nearly what we had in Appalachia, but they were plenty steep and root-ridden.

I hiked most of the path, but ran up and down some of the hills to get some hill work in. I now live in a flat area, so whenever I find hill I can run up, I do it. The race course has some rolling hills, so I have to prepare somehow.

I also managed to get in a walk along the beach at sunrise. We saw a lot of starfish on the beach, but left most of them there since we weren’t sure whether they were alive. Seeing snow in the dunes was unique.

Sunrise at the Outer Banks.

I’ve continued cross-training but have found it difficult to do because I’m fighting some sinus congestion and sleep problems. I am concerned that I won’t be able to complete 15 of the #wedohardstuff workouts that I had hoped to do this month. But I have six days to do six workouts. I’ll be working down to the wire, so I’m just going to take it slow and steady. Hopefully I’ll knock the workouts out.

I’m not that the point that I’ve lost my motivation, but at an odd place where I need to rest and slow things down, but don’t wanna. I want to keep pushing the envelope a little more. I know doing so calms me, opens my mind and sets my day up for success.

Pushing too hard, or not pushing enough. There is a point where the push is just enough. I need to find it by next week, the seven days before my race.

Do you have any taper tips? Please leave a comment or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.