Taper time!

I suppose it's been a little while since my last post; I fear that work and general exhaustion have taken a bite out of my gusto for blogging. And running too, apparently. I better recap a bit: this last week of training wasn't horrible, but it wasn't that great either. The first training run of the week took place in the rain...yipee. I have almost no experience running in the rain...I'm not from 'round these parts. Even by the local's standards, it was quite a downpour. Luckily it was only a 5 mile run; unluckily it still took me a long time to finish it because it was the first run following the long run, and those have never been very easy for me; I'm still stiff and kinda sore from the long run and I don't tend to push myself very hard.
Since work started I have slacked pretty significantly in taking care of my knees, which at this point are probably what can keep from succeeding, and I REALLY felt it during the 8 mile run in the middle of the week. It was then I decided I need to try harder and make time for tlc, or I won't make it through the marathon. I don't have as much time to ice as before, but I did try and remedy that during the latter part of the week: icing in the car during the commute to work in the morning and icing while sitting at my desk during the afternoon. (My boss thought it odd that I had a bag of frozen peas on the floor of my office...I had hopped up for a minute to do something and she came in.) Oh well, whatever works.
I'm sure it helped some, but I think I waited too long to make the effort in order for it to really make a difference for this morning's 18 miler. I survived, but it was fairly painful...and long. I thought I'd done a good job hydrating, but I don't think it was enough consdering the heat wave we've had the last couple of days; it was much warmer today than it has been the last few weeks. (You'd think that 160 ounces of gatorade in the last 16 hours would be enough...and thats JUST gatorade...doesn't include the 200 ounces of water from yesterday.) Overall exhaustion from work, lack of sleep and sore knees kept me moving pretty slow. But at least I finished! (I think I listened to the All-American Rejects song "Move Along" 3 times in a row for motivation during the last 2 miles.) I also seemed to lose a lot of time today, nothing seemed to be going smoothly. I had to stop for two potty breaks, instead of the usual one, and at one point I got a rock in my shoe and had to take the whole thing off to get it out. All those little minutes add up. Also there was some sort of bike race going on on part of my route, so I had to go a different way. Those bikers are scary fast! I think I was the one needing the helmet while trying to share the trail with them. Ok enough complaining.
Now I get to start tapering, yay! My long run for the upcoming week is only 9 miles, halleluja! My life-saving book says that all the muscular, skeletal, cardio and mental training work is complete, and the next 3 weeks are for bodily and emotional recovery. I'm to keep up the carbs and fluids to build up the glycogen levels to their max, without gaining any fat...which means I'll need to ease up a bit on the calories. The book says that even an extra pound of fat during the marathon would make a negative difference.
I am growing rather nervous about the actual distance of the marathon: 26.2 miles. I know how I feel after 18...I can barely walk until after my ice bath. My books swears that if I can run 18, then I can run the marathon...but it's so strange to run 18 miles and think about having 8 whole more miles to go! The good news is that when I hit the 18 mile mark today, I felt as if I could keep going; I didn't necessarily want to, but I could have, so that's encouraging. I keep hearing the saying, "the last 6 miles are the last half of the marathon". I know I'm gonna be hurting pretty bad and hating myself, but hopefully all the mental training will kick in and carry me through. Hopefully.