Pre- Race Day My parents decided to come watch me and my husband run. I love having my parents around to support me on race day, mom has run so many races that I find her presence to be calming, and she just gets it without having to explain. The day before the race Jake and I went for light 4km run with a few strides to finish. The strides were 200m: we built to max effort throughout the 200m, then brought ourselves back to easy pace between each one. The goal is to warm up the muscles, and get rid of the stale feelings from the last week of…

Taper: can be described as decreasing exercise before an important competition; it designed to create optimal performance on race day. Typically tapering for marathon is approximately 3 weeks from race day.  The goal of tapering is to get your body into peak performance for the race. As Greg McMillan states in his article “Don’t Taper. PEAK!” you do not want to change your weekly running routine. Decreasing your regular routine can lead to feeling flat on race day. Gradually ease off mileage over your tapering period (2-3 weeks prior to race day). McMillan also states, “more runners fail because of tapering too much rather than no enough”.  Part of keeping…