With only a few days left until the Philly Rock N Roll Half Marathon, I'm officially in taper mode.

It's time to slash mileage, top off my glycogen stores and get my legs in prime shape for race day.

The reason for tapering after months of training is to make sure your legs are well rested on race day. At this point, there's not much you can do to improve your overall fitness before the race. That work needed to be done over the last two months. So this final stretch before the race is all about taking it easy and keeping everything loose.

While the severe decrease in mileage can make some people go nuts (it's called taper madness for a reason), I'm trying to keep my wits about me.

Here's my plan for taper:

1. Get in two solid runs this week.
2. Stretch, foam roll, use the Stick to work out any lingering muscle kinks.
3. Get enough sleep. Being well rested is crucial for race-day performance.
4. Increase intake of "good" carbs, while decreasing the crap, like candy, cookies, etc.
5. Hydrate like crazy.

It's a pretty basic plan, but it's going well so far.

I was excited that this week's "long" run was only seven miles. It gave me plenty of time to shower, run some errands and get to College Park in time for our first home game tailgate.



I didn't have tickets for the game, but the Terps came out on top 62-3.

Scores from other teams I care about:
Notre Dame lost to Michigan 28-24. Dagger.
The Eagles lost to the Packers 27-20. Blame this on bad playing calling and starting QB choice by Andy Reid.
Terp soccer tied Boston College 1-1.

I love the start of fall sports season and I'm going to try to love this week of taper and not go nuts with such majorly decreased mileage.

How do you stay sane during taper week?