The highs, lows and runny nose :Loch Ness Marathon 2011

I have finally finished my marathon training. 21 miles were clocked up last Wednesday. It came with a mixture of emotions, with only 2 weeks to taper, the marathon is very close, but still it feels ages away, so I'm happy that I'm done but sad the relentless training is over.

The end of my 21 miles was definitely a low point, I didn't feel flooded with the usual 'runners high' more an overwhelming sense of 'oh what now'. Amazingly, my body felt fantastic afterwards and was quite surprised at how quickly I recovered,  I spent the next day gardening, cleaning the car and generally being very busy. This was particularly surprising as training over the summer wasn't quite to plan, I had to drop one of my 20mile runs due to a nasty infection and antibiotic treatment and I'd struggled to complete all the mileage during the school holidays.

My training has definitely had lots of highs, these included completing long runs, enjoying running with Steve, meeting people along the way and raising cash for the very special babies and toddlers I work with every week.

So now, I am tapering. What is a taper? Non- running people keep asking...Consider these hypothesis...

•  A taper is designed to make a runner go completely stir crazy so that come marathon day, you cannot wait to run and you run like the wind, grab a PB and are happy ever after! 
• A taper is a chance for your body to recover from the stress of constant 18/20/15 mile runs.
• A taper is a chance to hone your nutritional/fluid intake before the big day, in my case tonight this involved fruit and nut chocolate.

I think a taper is all of the above, and whilst I am counting down the days to Loch Ness , I know my legs will be fitter if they have a few weeks of cut back training; that said I have 10 miles to run at the weekend and I'm very excited about it, I keep thinking about the speedy 10k I have planned with Steve on Thursday and... I can't wait!!

The runny nose, well it's turning chilly and that only means one thing, either remembering to run with a tissue or having to be inventive whilst on the run ;o)