Tapering... or not...

Apparently this week is supposed to be my highest mileage week out of marathon training.  It's supposed to be the toughest and most taxing to date, where your mileage "peaks" and then you being to "taper," or cut back on mileage in order to let your body recuperate so you're well-rested and ready to go come race day. I understand all these concepts, it's just the execution piece where I'm lacking... if I spent as much time running as I've spent sitting around eating ice cream, I'd be very well prepared.

So glad that my grand total mileage for this week so far is 4.5 miles. Does running to the subway count????  If you count my frequent morning dashes to the subway, the total is about 6 miles.  Next week I'm supposed to start tapering. Wonderful.  I have no clue what I'm going to do.  That's all well and fine if you've actually been putting in the work and building mileage up until now.... but when you've barely been running at all,  "high mileage" is all relative.  To me, at this point, 10 miles would be "high mileage." But there's not much to cut back from 10 miles.  Everyone else is starting to taper and I'm just starting to kick up the miles.

This marathon is going to be a shit show (pardon my French..) I may end up sleeping in and not even making it to the race.  First of all, even IF I wake up in time, around 3:30am, which depends on IF I get to bed early the night before, and IF I make it to the ferry in time, and IF I manage to find my way to the starting line (given my record of lateness, those are all HUGE IF'S...)... even if I manage to make it to the starting line, then I still have to actually run the entire thing.

I don't know what I was thinking when I registered for this marathon, or what I was thinking when I figured I could get away with not training for an entire MONTH.  I haven't run any races this entire year.  2012 has been one of the saddest years in my running career to date. and now I'm supposed to run a MARATHON!?!?

The point was, I wasn't thinking. That's the problem.  This is a disaster.

I have no fueling strategy. I have no clue what I'm going to wear on race day. I have no idea how I'm going to stash and carry my gear. I have no clue if anyone I know is even coming to watch and cheer for me.  I have no idea how to pace myself. I don't know how or when to properly hydrate. I don't have a plan for race day morning.  I don't even have a strategy for the night before. I have no idea what I'm going to do.  I have 26 days left to sort all this out.

If I'm not going to put in the miles, figured I might as well prepare myself in other ways, so I've been reading lots about marathons lately.  Over the weekend, I googled "how to train for a marathon in one month."  The results were discouraging at best.  People such as myself who claimed to be "fairly fit but currently out of shape," who haven't been running and wanted to complete a marathon but only had 1 month left to train, posted messages, wondering if they were crazy/stupid, or if they could reasonably pull it off..... the grand consensus was that these people were out of their minds.  Most of the responses guaranteed that these individuals would seriously injure themselves, possibly incurring long term serious debilitating injuries.  Some people went for it anyway.  Some people pulled it off!  They completed a marathon with little to no training, preparing for 30 days or less, and they lived to talk about it!  (There is still hope!!)

There are some crazy people out there... guess I'm one of them.


*References:

http://www.seanogle.com/headline/how-to-run-marathon

http://patrickhitches.com/patrick-hitches/1-month-marathon-training-program/

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/marathon-training-planning-a-30-day-running-programme-702