i never thought it would be this hard

to taper.

taper is making me feel weird. uneasy. like i'm not doing enough. only a week in, and i feel...squishy(er). i'm having a hard time not pushing myself too hard on the shorter workouts.

well, on the swim and bike workouts that is. i did something weird to my left foot on last weekend's 18 miler. the toe i broke 2 months ago started to hurt, no biggie but a skosh uncomfortable. i think i started to compensate in my gait, though, because after 5 minutes the arch of my foot under the big toe started to hurt. bad. like, had to walk. a lot.

so, of course, i am freaking out about that as well. it hurt too much to do my mid week run, so i did the elliptical instead (plus ice massage and advil.) i managed to do my 10 miler today. it still hurt, but not so bad that i couldn't run. in a way, it was probably good that my foot was a bit sore, because i think i would have gone balls out on that run, since i'm feeling so fantastically amazingly in-the-best-shape-of-my-life kind of fit. so, even though i'm a little freaked out about the pain (and may or may not have self-diagnosed it as a stress fracture) it was probably better that it was there. i've heard tons of stories about people who go too hard during taper and then don't have gas in the tank for race day. that would have been me today--burning my race legs out there on a long run.

and in case you've haven't been tallying my minor injuries and illnesses for the training season like i have, here's a breakdown:

• 100x head colds
• 1x sinus infection
• 2x gastro intestinal explosive disease 
• pleuritic chest pain
• quadriceps strain
• broken L 5th toe
• plausible/possible/imaginary L foot stress fracture

i'm sure there's more hidden in the whiny recesses of this blog. 

but it's all been worth it. to get to this point. even with a hurty foot, that 10 miler felt like a breeze. i finally understand what all of those previously annoying IM training friends meant by 'only' having a 10/12/13 miler and a 2/3 hr ride during taper. a year ago, it would have been ridiculously hard. now, it's a cake walk. 

i feel ready. let's do this.