Taper time

Saturday morning, I headed out for a run at 8:50am. I didn't stop moving until 11:15am.

Two hours, 25 minutes and 18 seconds later, I had clocked 22 kilometres, had seen two coyotes, four deer and a groundhog and had arrived home with the same blood sugar I left with (5.0).

It was a pretty spectacular morning and, after a good stretch and shower, didn't even feel like I had run 10k, never mind 22.

The longest run of my half marathon training behind me, I started looking ahead at the next few long runs. This is easy week so I'll be clocking a relatively short 10k run on Saturday. The following Saturday I'll be running 16k and then the next Saturday I'll be running 12k.

Oh, and then I'll be getting on a plane and flying to Israel for two weeks.

Omigod.

Three weeks today I'll be at the Buffalo airport, bright red suitcase and orange carry-on in tow. I'll be leaving my winter boots and coat behind and arriving in Tel Aviv to spend two weeks with my sister and her husband - exploring Israel, sampling all the food, and running the Tel Aviv half marathon.

This trip has been booked and planned for a while but there were too many variables in play for me to really get excited until I knew for sure I would be going. Well, I'm going and, now that the pre-race taper has begun, it is starting to feel really real.