Guys – my first full marathon is tomorrow!! I can’t believe it! Matt and I are leaving for Richmond this afternoon to meet up with my brother, who is also running the marathon, and to hit the expo to get our bibs. We have a fun dinner planned with my training buddy Kathleen and her fiancé – Italian food, of course. Then we attempt to sleep and at 8 a.m. tomorrow, we’re off! For those of you who live in Richmond and will be out cheering (thank you!!) – here’s what I’ll be wearing. Minus the hair being down, obviously. And hopefully I’ll have a bigger smile on my face, although that will probably depend upon what mile you see me… 😉
As you can see, I have my name on my shirt! I bought some fun sparkly duct tape (per ya’lls suggestion – great idea to do this instead of iron on letters so I can take it off after) the other day for me and the other girls to use to put our names on our shirts.
The first time I tried it, I made my name wayyyy too big and my hydration pack was covering half of it. Oops! Glad I realized that before the race, or everyone would have been cheering for “NN”. 😉
I spent some time this morning packing up and making sure I’m (fingers crossed) not forgetting anything. Did I forget anything?! I’ve got my hydration vest, my Garmin watch, my compression sleeves, sports bra, favorite socks, shirt, running skirt, body glide for chaffing, point and shoot camera for fun action shots during the race, my running shoes (not pictured), some baby wipes and toilet paper just in case…
Plus my fuel – as we know, never try anything new on race day. I’ll be sticking with what I’ve been doing on long runs. I’ll start with the Clif shot gel (yay caffeine), then move on to the Margarita Shot Bloks (yay salt), then around mile 16 when I want real food, I’ll rock the Cascadian farm granola bars (yay for low fiber and low fat <— they slow digestion, which is not great while you’re running – but is great in normal life, of course).
Since I’ll be in a hotel and not at home on race morning, I also packed my breakfast for tomorrow morning before the race. My standard cinnamon raisin Ezekiel toast with a little almond butter and half a sliced banana.
Whew. Running is high maintenance, ya’ll. 😉
The course looks like it should be a pretty one – lots of running along the water, which you guys know I love, and this race is supposed to have good crowd support too – it’s been dubbed “America’s Friendliest Marathon”! It doesn’t look too hilly, either… just some mild hills around miles 15 to 17, although I may be cursing myself for calling those “mild” when we hit them tomorrow.
There are some areas where we loop back some, too, which should be good for Matt and Kathleen’s fiancé Zach to cheer us on!
As for the weather, it’s looking okay… not amazing but not terrible, either. It will be warmer than I’d like, and it WAS saying rain, but just changed to cloudy instead. Fingers crossed for no rain and no wind!
And now, time to get some work done and head out to a meeting before finishing packing up and hitting the road! For those of you that are interested in tracking me online, here’s the website to sign up. We’ll be crossing pace trackers at miles 6.2, 13.1, 20, and of course the finish. As for goals, my #1 main goal is to have fun, enjoy the experience, and finish with a smile on my face and no injuries. I’d love to finish in under 4 hours, and I think we can do it based on our training, so that’s my A goal. But again – as long as I finish, I’ll be happy. That’s the beauty of doing a distance for the first time – any time is a PR! 🙂
Regardless of how tomorrow goes, I’m proud of myself for just making it this far in my running and training that I can even realistically attempt a full marathon. I certainly never would have thought I’d be able to run this far, and it’s pretty cool how far I’ve come in the past few years.
A HUGE thank you to all of you for the good luck wishes and all the support and advice you’ve shared during my training and over the past few years. I’ve said this before before races, but knowing that you guys believe in me really helps me to better believe in myself. So thank you. 🙂 Thinking about the fact that some of you will be tracking and cheering us on virtually tomorrow will really help to raise my spirits in the inevitable rough moments. You guys rock.
Here’s to 26.2! Good luck to everyone who will be out racing this weekend – we can do this!
