The taper is the hardest part

Please excuse the horrible play on a Tom Petty song, but tapering is much harder than I thought it would be. Physcially, it's great. Running less obviously allows for some recovery that is probably well needed. However, mentally, tapering is brutal for me. Since I've never run a marathon before, I'm constantly questioning myself if I am ready. Well, tapering you are at best just trying to maintain the fitness you have, and are not adding to it. Well when you are not exactly sure you are at the level you need to be, it is kind of a scary thing to deal with. You just feel like there is something you should be doing. I've been training hard since May, why am I stopping all of a sudden?
The other thing I've been almost laughing at lately is all these marathons books and blogs that talk about "only running if you are healthy and injury free". This may be the biggest bunch of BS I have ever heard. For most of us, our body gets consistently more pissed at us with each longer run we do. I don't know that my body will EVER get used to, or like the idea of running for 5 hours straight. If I only trained when I was not hurting and injury free, I think I would be able to count on one hand the nuber of runs I would have made, and I probably would've stopped by 5 miles. I have had plantar fasciitis, ITband syndrome, and just as that is clearing up (probably due to compensating while my IT hurt) I'm getting patellar tendonitis in both knees. I just don't know that there is a such thing as "running when healthy". What I have learned though is to suck it up and keep running. As much as I can, I try and make the pain part of the "fun". I use it to remind me why most people don't run 26.2 miles, and why I (hopefully) will. Until next week.