Longer Runs coming to an end and Tapering down

OK, its about 2 weeks to go before we march to the Avenue of the Giants Marathon in Humboldt County in Northern California.  http://www.theave.org/Info.htm . Did we do the long runs that trains our mind, body and spirit in preparation for the big day? The answer, of course  is YES. While an elite marathoner might run two workouts per day and over 100 miles per week while training for a marathon, the body of most mortals like us in the OM Run team, could not take such pounding (and who can find that time anyway?). In general, the important components we used in our  marathon training program came from Galloway's 

• Gradually increase the overall weekly distance until two to three weeks before the marathon.
• Use interval running 4:1 or 5:1 schemes
• Include two long runs spread across the week, perhaps one midweek, the other on the weekend.
• Include one day of faster running and/or integrate pickups into  regular runs.
• Try to run  3-4 days per week.and off days in between
• The runs between long runs do not need to be any longer than 3-6 miles.

Our body won't get used to running long distances, unless it has run those distances on a regular basis. But, the body needs rest between those runs, which is why our team did no more than two long runs per week and moderate distance on the other days. At the beginning of our training program, those long runs were about 6 miles each. Then, as the weeks went by, gradually increased them. Perhaps week two would see the long runs as 6 & 8 miles, week three 7 & 9, week four: 7 & 10, etc. Gradually increase these until our two runs are closer to 12 and 18 miles. At this point we had built an excellent base. Then we did  at least 3 20+ Mile s in the last 3 weeks.

Now we are tapering down to the last weeks of the training. Actually it feels good that we don't have any more Long runs. It all looks easy but then we need to be focussed on keeping our body and joints moving in the last two weeks before the run. We need to have balanced nutrition, hydration and ample sleep so our bodies get well nourished and ready for the big day with energy and enthusiasm.  More on tapering in the later blog.