The Athlete's Village

The day of the race I'll wake up around 5:30 or so, get dressed and head to the buses.  The buses line up along the Boston Common and take all the racers to Hopkinton to a school that is transformed into a mini city for a few hours.  While at this school, everyone is basically waiting around, outside, on the grounds of the school.  So, from experience I've created a little list of things I need to bring with me, so I'll share that with you now.  Some things are items that I want to have immediately after the race.  Each runner is allowed to check one bag that will be transported to the finish area.

Here goes

• trash bags - to sit on and use in case it rains
• protein drink for post race
• Carboom energy gels for the race itself, one for pre race and 5 for during the race.
• extra clothes to stay warm while waiting
• toilet paper - don't want to hit a portapotty that has run out.
• race shoes
• extra pair of socks in case the first pair gets soaked from standing in the grass.
• towel, this can be used more or less as a pillow when rolled up.
• Ibuprofen, I like to take a few before the race
• gatorade for post race

This year I'll also bring my phone to the village to get some pics and upload them to facebook so that friends can see what its really like.  The phone will also come in handy as this is the first year that I will not be going with someone I know.  There are a few local runners that I know running, but finding them is nearly impossible once at the village.

Weight

Its been nearly two weeks since my last real post.  Just a quick update, last weekend I did an 18 miler after a night hanging with the neighbors out by the fire drinking a few beers.  I did manage to run 13 miles at around 6:12 pace with a two mile warmup and 3 mile cool down.  I did get dehydrated, I was drinking during the run but just couldn't keep up with the loss and obviously the beers the night before didn't help.  But all in all a very good run.

The past nearly two weeks I've spent alot of time working from home and it doesn't make sense but I eat less when I'm working from home then when at work.  That being said, I weighed myself this morning and I'm down to 150.0, in the last week I've lost a half a pound. I was originally trying to get around 150 for the race, then about 6 weeks ago I got down to 152 and felt really run down and decided to stay at 152.  So over the next week and a half I'll try and eat a little extra and put a pound back on, the sacrifices I make for running ;)


I was also able to confirm that I will be in the first corral for the race, I had been wondering if I might be right on the cusp of the second corral but the baa.org website was updated to list your starting corral.

Last night my wife and I were trying to figure out the slogan that we would have printed on the back of the shirts my family will wear during the race.  The last two years she has used some variant of the Adidas slogan for the marathon.  The slogan this year neither one of us liked, I had seen an ad on the back of a Running Times issue that I liked, it is "The marathon is a race to be run not a box to be checked." My wife thought it was a little elite-st, but I agree with it.  She like another slogan we found on runlikeananimal.com "if you're not sure whether you are running or jogging, go faster." So we'll see what the shirts say.

Now that I'm in the home stretch, every night I have been thinking about the race before I go to bed.  I've been analyzing every step I take while running, making sure nothing feels funny.  I have done the training and feel I can do something special come race day.  I'll share my goal time a little closer to race day.