The question we have to ask ourselves today is, "Does Phil feel lucky?"So, um, I have a race tomorrow. Ten miles. I am not actually *racing* this race tomorrow, mind you--it is just a training run. A training run that happens to be ten miles long. Where I get a MEDAL at the end. EEEEEEEE!
The race, she is SOLD OUT, meaning I will get to run with about 2500 of my closest friends. That's about as many as were at the 5-mile race I did last month.
The weather is unsettled. This is BAD. Bad for Amanda's nerves and just plain bad in general. Right now the hour-by-hour weather says it will be 51 degrees at the gun with a 40% chance of rain. By the time I am likely to finish, it will be 53 degrees with a 50% chance of rain. It would be so much easier if was definitely going to rain or definitely going to be dry. Overcast is good, but it would be better sans rain.
And a temperature of 50-ish degrees is right on the line between capri temperatures and shorts temperatures. If it were dry and sunny I'd go with shorts, but I'm thinking I'll want the capris if I'm going to get wet. And I'll have to schlep my rain jacket with me. And depending on what I wear or don't wear, I will have vastly differing storage capacities. In the worst-case scenario, I will barely manage to fit my car key and gels in my back capri pocket. In the best-case scenario (jacket and shorts), I could comfortably carry a hat, gloves, extra socks, enough gels for an army, kleenex, extra water, etc. When I went to try everything on, the capris felt hot, so I decided to ditch them and go with the shorts. This will probably result in a monsoon lasting for the entire length of my run.
However, if I do badly tomorrow, it won't be because I had a bad pre-race dinner. (I took Ultra Hardcore Badass Runner-dom step #3: Pasta dinner the night before the race!) I found a lot of message board postings from people who liked pasta with grilled chicken the night before a race. Lacking any creative impetus, I decided to go with spaghetti and struck out for The Olive Garden at about quarter to six. Fortunately, I remembered on the way there that this little pizza/grinder joint in the next town over also has some pasta dishes on their menu, so I stopped in there instead. It's a non-chain restaurant and much closer to home. I was so nervous I forgot my camera (see??), but I did indeed have the perfect dinner: spaghetti with red sauce topped with grilled chicken, with a little garlic bread on the side for good measure. And two giant glasses of water.
The other thing that is worrying me is my eye. My right eye has been itchy and has swelled up a little over the course of the week. I thought it was a bug bite directly below my eye at first, but now I'm not sure. I have been wearing my glasses all week, but I refuse to try and see where I'm going with spatters of water obscuring my vision tomorrow. I am wearing my contact lenses for the race and hoping I won't be miserable.
The other other thing that's bothering me is my right hip/leg. I think I pushed it too much at last weekend's eight-miler and it hasn't been quite right since. It was kinda achy and sore on Tuesday, and then on Thursday it still hurt even though I was running slowly. It seemed better for a while today, but then during the afternoon dog walk, it was acting up again. We'll see what it does tomorrow (behaving would be nice).
But regardless of whether the race is a triumph or a total disaster, I won't be alone. I am driving three of my Team in Training teammates up to the race so we can get a parking spot at the race site (because the race is so full, they're only letting carpools park close by). I don't know if we'll actually run together--I would prefer to go at my own pace so I can get a better idea of my probable finishing time for the half--but I'm sure there will be much celebratory squeeing afterwards.
I found out the hard way last time that I did not put my D-Tag on correctly. (The D-Tag is the red thing you loop into your shoelaces that times you at the race.) I got to the five-mile race and saw that my D-Tag was coming undone twenty minutes before the gun! I stuck the adhesive on the wrong side of the tab or something. For anyone else who needs a remedial lesson in how to put on a D-Tag, here's a helpful video:
You're welcome.
I have to get to bed ASAP for my 4:45 alarm, so I'll see you after the race!
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