I love you Taper Week!

Couldn't have phrased it any better, Kara. Competition for Pat and Megan, Mo Trafeh's marathon debut in London this weekend, US struggles in Boston. And Joan-Benoit is running Boston!!!

Tuesday, Apr 6 - 15 miles: 2X6 miles, 3 down. Gorgeous day outside. Hit the trails in hopes of doing the Ben Rosario/Hansons marathon workout of 2X6 miles (5 seconds faster than MP), but completely overshot it big time. Haven't done as much marathon pace runs this training block, so pacing is not the easiest for me. Felt heavy legs on the first rep, (6:33 first mile will do that) but definitely settled in coming back and was locked in. Dropped a 6:30 last mile to finish it out. Splits were very aggressive, and worked for it. Felt pretty tired on the cooldown, but very happy with the workout. First 6 miles was 6:51 average, 2nd 6 miles was 6:46 average.

Wednesday, Apr 7 - 6 easy and slow

Thursday, Apr 8 - 0! Late dinner after work, switch off days

Friday, Apr 9 -6 easy and slow? I don't remember

Saturday, Apr 10 - 4 miles - Go! St. Louis 5K, small warmup and cooldown. 19:50, 7th place. Fun day to be out - huge rain storms in the morning and traffic made it a mess to get to the start line, but eventually parked a ways and made it to the start. Since we were far away, ended up having the wear my cotton race shirt since I had nowhere to store it. Went out with a small lead pack on the Forest Park loop that Crystal and I have done so many times, and was cruising. Let them go a little past the first mile around the Science Center (going up that hill), and settled into cruise control/tempo speed. Maybe settled a little too much, as the 2nd mile split was 10 seconds slower than I had planned. Cruised in at that point, let the 6th place guy go (who was looking over his shoulder literally every 3 seconds to check on me) and ran back around so I could watch Megan finish. Fun times, splits were mediocre at best, but this was a planned workout with Boston so close. Splits were: 6:08, 6:28, 6:31.

Sunday, Apr 11 - 0! Volunteered all morning with Crystal at the Go! St. Louis Marathon. A very hot and sunny day to be out, and unfortunately more hot and sunny than it should have been (75 at the start, got up to 89!). Great to see all the Big River Runners out and about, sucks that Karl got outkicked at the end, but he put up a fight. Sunday at the Masters took over the rest of my evening, and had 0 energy. 36 miles this week - eek!

Monday, Apr 12 - 4 miles. Nice and easy, looped around town.

Tuesday, Apr 13 - 0! Gorgeous day to run, and I skipped out. Got out of work late, just couldn't get myself out the door for the run. Slight burnout for me (physically and mentally), and taper week so not too upset right now.

Tonight, some pace work, then small jogs here and there before the big race. Headed out on Friday, so looking fahrward to a wicked fun time in Baaaaaston!