Taper Week

We are in our final week of training for the Myrtle Beach Half Marathon, that period of time that we call the  "taper."  All of the long runs have been completed now, and the only runs left are easy ones.  For a marathon, I used to favor a good three-week taper, which is counter-intuitive to non-marathon runners but has proven successful in the 20 marathons I have run.  For a half-marathon, I like a two-week taper - the final long run two weeks out, then a six-mile long run one week out - "as many miles as the days left before the race," is the old rule of thumb.

Yesterday, Martha ran five miles and I ran three, and tomorrow we will both run three easy miles.  This is the difficult part - holding back, when we know that we can run longer, and faster - just putting all of that training in the bank to withdraw on race day.

We had a beautiful sunset last night, and warmer weather this week.

So this morning we decided to walk on the new trail they have been constructing at Fort Macon.  When we arrived at the trailhead, however, the trail was closed off and a small piece of equipment was at work back on the path, probably removing some debris in the small pond crossed by a bridge.  So we went on to Fort Macan and walked on the small loop trail behind the fort around a pond which we have walked before on bird-watching trips.

Coming around the first turn, what a splendid sight we saw!  The trees behind the pond were filled with a huge flock of ibises, like the ones we saw one morning last year.

They were roosting on the bare branches, so quiet that people visiting the park would not have even known they were there.  A man was walking a little white dog and we told him there was something special to see.  "Wow!" he said.  "I've never seen that many.  What are they? Sea gulls?"  We told him they were ibises, feeling like experts trained by Ranger Randy.

We circled back around to  the small path we knew about from previous bird-watching programs, and watched these birds in fascination.  A blue heron soared onto a tree across the pond, keeping his distance from the others, but I could not take a good photo.

We wandered out onto the beach and then back to the fort, feeling as if we had seen something special, wanting to go up to people in the parking lot and tell them about it.  

Out in the channel, a huge freighter - the "Federal Danube" - was going out to sea, moving much faster than we thought it was capable of sailing.  It blew its deep horn three times, so loudly we thought it might frighten the birds. we were watching.  We could see tiny people on deck, looking shore-ward, perhaps their last glimpse of shore for a long time as they steered their way out to the open sea.