Race Preview

Well, marathon time is almost upon us. Tomorrow we're traveling down to Myrtle Beach, hitting the packet pickup and expo. I hope to meet up with some folks there. We're traveling with the girls, and our neice and her friend. We're then sharing a condo with Wifey's dad, and her mom will be keeping the girls with them. so we might actually get some sleep friday night.

6:30 saturday morning is race start. It's a full 26.2 miles, in one loop. the start/finish is a few blocks off of the beach, and then you basically run a rectangle course. Here's the course map. It starts running around Broadway at the Beach, which is where we stay when we go to MB. You turn onto second row for a while, then come back through the grand strand, then back to second row until you go away from the coast to the finish line. Wifey's dad is a morning person, and I know he's bringing his new Nikon D60, an awesome camera. so he's going to be our official photographer. He's been incredibly supportive of us through the entire process. Wifey's mom, stepdad, one of her aunts, and a handful of cousins are also coming. they don't need much of an excuse to go to myrtle beach. My family is not coming because they agree with my point of view on myrtle beach.

But here's the kicker. Last night I started running a fever. Bigun went back to school today after missing a week with what the doctors called a "stomach bug" that gave her 4 days of fever, vomiting and diarrhea. EG just had the snots really bad. and I was really concerned that they were going to get us sick too, right here before marathon time. Well, last night I started the fever, and I still have it hanging around 100 degrees. I took some nyquil (love the nyquil) and an airborne, and i've been chugging vitamin c and listerine like it was keg beer. then this morning Wifey said she was starting to feel icky. I've got the full body pains today, still having a fever, but that's been it. I thought we were careful when the kids got sick, but I guess we weren't careful enough.

Did you know that webMD lists competitive running as a cause of diarrhea? I could end up finishing like that guy in the pic above. The weather forecast calls for some rain and a high temp of 63 degrees. So with a fever and maybe vomiting and diarrhea, running 26.2 miles in the rain sounds like the perfect choice of activity. Actually, it changes the goals up some. I'm not going to worry about time. If I end up walking 25 miles and finishing in 7 hours it's ok. Any discussion about marathon will tell you that the race itself is rather anti-climactic. My training plan covered 539 miles over 20 weeks. Sure, I missed my share of the scheduled runs, but I'm sure it still cleared 450 miles. Most people would argue that the most difficult part of your first marathon is having the courage to register and the determination to complete the training plan. That's done. I have also enjoyed the process enough to be sure that this won't be my last marathon either. So I'm going to get another shot at breaking 5 hours. this time I'm just going to try and be as comfortable as possible. and if this stupid sickness means i can't finish, then i can't finish.

So good luck to anyone else who is running this race with me or any other race this weekend. There's a bunch of them, i know. Jess has a 5k on saturday, knock it out girl!

We'll be traveling back here on sunday, so I will post a race report on monday. if there's anything to report on. happy valentines day!