Taper Madness Hits!

Unless you have trained for a race longer than 10km you may not have heard of the term "taper madness," well, my friends, it has finally hit me. That hard to describe feeling of wanting to run but knowing you need to rest the legs in preparation for a MUCH longer run to come, that feeling of  "I should be doing something right now..." the "oh crap what have I signed up for?!" thoughts, it all came calling. At first I thought it was simply me freaking out about not having shoes to wear for the Ultra-NEXT WEEK-but then I realized I actually more freaked out about my lack of preparation and the lack of time I have to make up any long runs. The whole training block is staring me in the face, telling me how under-trained I am for this.

Last night my husband had to deal with the full force of this realization-tears, apologies, negotiations, you name it. I was a blubbering mess to put it mildly. His is the voice of reason in these kinds of moments, he assured me he and our daughter would be there to cheer me no matter how far I managed to go..but that I should really be able to handle at least 2 laps of the 12km lap course (he's right). So we hatched a plan; I will just DO MY BEST. I'm going to take this thing one lap at a time. If I do three-that's okay, if I manage to do all four and the 1km out and back-awesome. If it takes all day, well, he and Hannah will manage to entertain themselves.
Today it feels like half of the pressure is off, I'm not worried about disappointing them after our talk last night, but-damn it-I need to get this shoe thing figured out. Saturday I'll have to subject them to yet another trip to the shoe store. My fingers and toes are triple crossed for luck.