Treating taper madness, runlikeamama style...

I am just nutty this week. Today I ran my final wee little two-miler, my last run before Sunday's marathon. Taper madness, or the nuttiness that ensues after you train by running lots and lots of miles and suddenly cut way back in preparation for a race, can make you a little crazy.

I am officially a little crazy this week. I am ridiculously tired, even though I'm probably getting enough sleep. OK, I wake up a lot, but I always do. People at work or elsewhere start talking about something and I can't seem to always tie my thoughts and words to the conversation at hand. My husband was grumpy with me today for seemingly snapping at him about something. Truth be told, I have no idea how I probably spoke to him this morning. So I apologized in case he was right. I'm just a little gone. It's temporary.

Part of it is the nerves are setting in. I'm plenty confident I have the endurance to finish this puppy come Sunday. Not worried there. It's my head I'm worried about. When I start getting tired and my head starts talking myself out of stuff, convincing me to just walk a minute or 45 minutes, that's the killer. My head has screwed up every single marathon I've ever run. So yeah, it's a bogeyman for me, two days out.

But I'm a lucky, lucky marathon mama. My eldest son, the guy who's turning 20 in two weeks (or is it less? Dammit, brain cells, work!) arrived tonight to stay with us for a few days. He's here! He looks so grown up, and yet, he's my boy and has been my boy for so long. 

M, the little toddler man, now a pre-schooler, was all.over.this. He was delighted to have his big buddy brother back. My teenager -- gosh, can I call him that anymore??? -- arrived during bath time and M practically did dolphin flips in the bathtub.

Baby C, who is 18 years younger than her biggest brother, and who will never, ever grow up with him, laid on her tummy in the tub, her little baby tush protruding from the bubbles, as she quietly and cautiously regarded him. Her enormous aquamarine-blue eyes gazed at him, her mouth shut and her expression uncharacteristically serious. But she never cried. T got M out of  the tub and into PJs, and I got C into her sweet little girl toddler PJs. I ran downstairs to throw some laundry in the wash, and by the time I was upstairs, two happy, chattering children orbited their oldest brother, showing toys and dragging books and their pajama'ed selves into his lap. And I could get out of my head, and just focus on the joy that was in M's room as the three of them played.

I don't know that I know what the "empty nest" feeling is. I postponed it well into the future by having kids so long after I had my big guy. But the feeling of having all of my children in my house, in their very, very different stages of life? It was the best, well at least temporary, antidote I could probably find to the taper craziness.

I am one happy runner mama tonight. :)

Now I just have to figure out how to channel all this happy-place stuff come Sunday. Help!