Zumba and Taper!

I guess I'm sort of tapering for Saturday's half-marathon. I ran 6 on Monday and 1.5 today before doing an hour of ZUMBA. Have you seen zumba? It's so much fun! I needed some fun today. Check this out (That's me in the front. Ok, not really.) Be sure to stay in for at least 42 seconds....





Zumba certainly uses muscles that running doesn't. There was lots of lateral movement, jumping, and more squats than I've ever done. I'm sure I looked a bit ridiculous. But I had fun. I hope I don't regret it tomorrow. My knees were feeling it a bit at the end.

I have a GOAL for my half-marathon on Saturday. It's a lofty goal---taking into account runs that have gone well lately and runs that have not (ok, ignoring the ones that have not....), but for some reason I'm cautious about posting it on here. Just in case. It's embarassing to have to come back later with my tail between my legs.

There are two big differences in this half-marathon and the last: this one has 3 miles that are on gravel (and I've never run more than one mile on gravel) and my longest run was only 12 miles. For the last one, I ran two 13-mile training runs prior to the half-marathon at 4 and 2 weeks out.

I guess a third difference is that I don't feel like there's as much pressure for this race. In many ways, it's just a training run for the marathon. It's not THE FOCUS RACE. And if I don't make my time goal, I've got another half-marathon in exactly a month. Maybe going into a race with little or no pressure is the way to go?