Notes
There were a lot of really good things about today's race. A lot of really bad things about it too. Thankfully, even the bad things are able to be redeemed and turned into a positive. Here's the recap:
Race started at 7am. I wanted to leave the house by about 5:45 at the latest. We didn't hit the road until 5:50. No big deal. We made good time getting out there. I still had to get my packet (with my number and timing chip) from my parents who picked it up for me (my dad also ran the 1/2 marathon), but that wouldn't take more than a few minutes. I would still have plenty of time to get a little warm up in (Using this as a marathon dress rehearsal, I only wanted to get about 5-10min in, just like I would do for a marathon) and use the bathroom at least once. No need to panic. So we turned into the parking garage where we parked last year. The first floor was full. The second was full. Slowly, I followed a line of cars all the way up to the fifth floor roof as we discovered that the last of the spots had been taken. Whoops. Would have liked to have known that before we entered the garage. Unfortunately, getting through the garage took 20+minutes. We didn't get out of it until after 6:30. I was getting pretty worked up. We finally parked at about 6:35. Thankfully we were able to find my parents fairly easily. I grabbed my bib number and headed off to the portopotty line to pin it on while I was waiting for my turn to take a leak. I couldn't find my safety pins though. I looked again...and again. Nope...no safety pins. I called Jane over and she went on a wild goose chase for some pins for me. At this point I was super worked up and nervous. Ick. I had a dream the night before that I missed the start of the race and couldn't catch up. I laughed it off as I woke up but it was quickly becoming a reality.
Anyway...I used the bathroom and dropped my bag off in a corner and got 5min of jogging in (thankfully I was able to find a nice uphill stretch that really opened me up in a hurry). It took another couple of minutes to find Jane and my parents after that with my stuff. The national anthem had already been sung. The race was about to start any minute now. Finally I found my parents with my jersey and my shoes. I threw off my sweats and quickly got mythem on my shoes and jersey (with only two safety pins b/c my dad donated me two of his. NOBODY had any pins anywhere). Very worked up and nervous, I jog up to the starting line. Cut up to the front and then quickly retie my shoes. Just as I stood up, the whistle blew and the race began. I took a deep breath and tried to relax. I was able to make it (I never got a chance to poop, but I wasn't going to worry about that) and now I just needed to focus on racing.