It seems my blogging has tapered even more than my running.  Last week consisted of al 5 mile runs at varying paces except for Saturday when I joined Seebo and Steve K for 10+ miles around Fairmount Park.  It was great to catch up with Steve who I am sure despite his extended absence from running over the past year or more will still kick my ass down Broad Street in May.

My taper is going well, legs are bouncy and my energy is up.  I am normally in bed at this point but with the reduced mileage I'm just not as tired.   Hard to believe the race is only a few days away.  The weather forecast is tightening up and has honed in on a high in the upper 50's and partly sunny.   The low the evening before is 36.  This means we'll be running in the 40-50 range. For me that is perfect and if the weather holds it will be one more excuse I'll have to check off my list.  

My race day plan is to go out extremely easy in the first mile (7:10-7:20) and then ease into the pace until I am right around 6:45.    As always I'll try to break the race into bigger chunks to avoid worrying about the small variation from mile to mile.  For three miles the math is easy.  I want to hit 20:20.  That means 61 minutes for 9 miles and 2hr2min for 18 miles, simple to remember.  I can also look at 5 mile pieces in 34 minutes.  Both of those will get me in right around 2:58.   If I can just communicate this to my legs and lungs I should be fine.