Half Marathon Training Update - Week 12

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This week was my longest run.  Ever.  I was planning on being home in Wisconsin for the weekend so I wanted to get the run out of the way before we left.  After the 7 mile run last weekend I planned out my route and tried to get excited about it without getting overwhelmed.  It definitely wasn't working until I got an email from Coach B... she told me to not think of it as 10 miles but to break it up.  She suggested breaking it into 2.5 mile segments but I went a little smaller than that and made it 1 mile segments.  I am so glad that I got this advice (and that I followed it) because it felt so amazing when my Garmin beeped and told me I'd completed a segment.  I kept an eye on my pace knowing that I needed to stay out of the 10's and in the 11:XX pace.  I felt pretty good for the first 5 miles at which point I stopped and took off my sweatshirt (I layered my clothes - appropriately this time) and continued on.  I thought miles 6-8 were boring so I kept thinking about the segment I was in (rather than the total distance) and that helped.  At the beginning of miles 7 and 8 I stopped to stretch and drink water (I paused my Garmin) and at mile 9 I walked for 2 minutes (I didn't pause my Garmin) before continuing.  I was so extremely proud to have finished but I'd be lying if I said it was easy.  I know that the last 5K of the race is going to be tough but I am also beginning to believe that I can actually do this!  YIPPEE!!

So, here's what I was supposed to do last week:
M: Run, 4 miles
T: Cross training or Speed
W: Run, 3 miles, threshold
T: Strength
F: Off
S: Run, 10 miles
S: Off

Here is what I actually did:

M: Run, 4.42 miles
T: Cross train (elliptical & stationary bike) and strength train
W: Run, 4.03 miles
T: Off
F: Run, 10 miles
S: Off (casually walked around)
S: Off

I thought that beginning taper would be awesome.  So I went for my run today and while the starting mile was rough (my legs felt heavy) I ran 5 miles.  As I thought about my workouts for the remainder of the week I realized that I felt really good and considered running 5 miles tomorrow too.  Yeah, that's not in the plan.

How do you handle tapering?  Do you feel like you can run more miles than you're supposed to?  If so, how do you reign that in?