Thursday
I was feeling anxious much of the week, but on Thursday the nerves really amped up. It was seriously ridiculous how limited my attention span was. I was twitchy and bouncing off the walls and couldn't focus for more than a few minutes at a time. I got up and walked around my office like every 10 minutes for no reason. I kept looking at the marathon website and obsessively eating every carbohydrate in a 50 mile radius. My coworkers noticed how anxious I was, and took every opportunity to laugh at how ridiculous I was being.
Friday
I took Friday off work, even though we weren't leaving town till early evening. I used Friday to pace around a lot, clean up my playlist, charge up the Garmin, and pack.... and check, re-check, re-re-check the separate "marathon stuff only" bag I had packed. Seriously, even though I KNEW I had packed everything I needed, I still had a moment of near panic when we were halfway to Mpls that I had forgotten my Garmin (I had not. duh). I was glad I took the day off to get things done and get the house ready for my awesome mother in law who would be wrangling the dynamic duo all weekend. We took off for Mpls around 6:30 and were surprised how quickly we made it! It had been quite awhile since we had taken a road trip without two young'ns.
Side note:
We scored a last minute hotel room in Downtown Minneapolis, only about 3 blocks from the Metrodome. SCORE!
Side side note:
Said hotel was like straight up 1985 fabulous. Don't believe me? ZENITH TELEVISION. For rizzles. Don't believe me again? PASTEL SEASHELL DECOR. STILL need more proof? Arcade with Ms Pac-Man. BOOM.
Saturday
Was SO excited to sleep in.... but my stupid body woke up at 7am anyway. Lamesville. Enjoyed a fairly legit breakfast (the usual fare of thin bacon, subpar scrambled eggs, toast, yogurt, etc... BUT there was a made-to-order omelet station. YES!)
Oh, speaking of breakfast, I am SO glad my pre-race neurosis helped me remember to plan ahead a breakfast strategy. When we arrived at the hotel, I learned that breakfast on the weekends did not begin till 7am.... which would be too late for me on race morning. Lucky for me, I packed two slices of wheat bread and a jar of Skippy Super Chunk in my marathon bag. I was not going to risk not having my usual race meal. Double lucky for me, the breakfast nook had a toaster available for me to use so I didn't have to try to chew on chewy non-toasted bread. (People, there IS a difference, despite what my naysayer hubby might tell you). Jay, ever supportive hubby, told me I was being ridiculous about the breakfast thing. I say not.
Anywhooooo, the expo opened at 10am and we arrived pretty much right at 10. Picked up my race stuff and walked around the expo, drooling over new running gear, but showing a great deal of self-control! Ate random free samples of stuff, grabbed some GU free samples, and of course, a few bags of Old Dutch potato chips (how come they give away chips at every expo I've ever been to?). The authors of my FAVORITE running books "Run Like a Mother" and "Train Like a Mother" had a table at the expo and I was super excited to meet them! I took a photo with them and bought a shirt that said "It's fine, I ran today." The only other thing I purchased was a 26.2 magnet for my car (which, by the way, if you have a plastic car, don't expect a magnet to stick to it... durh), and a pair of TCM Fitsoks (the BEST running sock).
After the expo, hubby and I struggled to think of something to do. Funny that we had a weekend free from children and we couldn't figure out what to do with ourselves. When in doubt, go to the best/worst place in the world: Mall of America! We grabbed a yummy Asian stir fry lunch, some gelato for dessert, and did a little shopping. Since it's 1990 all over again, I bought myself a sweeeet pair of turquoise cords from Gap! We also hit up a movie, which was nice because it was cheap, and it didn't require me to walk around all afternoon.
And of course, we had to pasta it up for dinner! We met up with my friend Amanda (a kick ass runner and the person who told me I could totally run a marathon) and went for dinner in Uptown at this place called Rinata. It was fantastic! A little pizza and bread for appetizers and an amazing butternut squash ravioli for my main course. Great food and lots of laughter helped me to feel a little less anxious about the next day.
We got back to the hotel by 9pm and I paced around for a good hour getting my bib pinned to my shirt and setting out all of my biz for the next morning. Texted back and forth with Stacie about our plans for meeting up in the morning, and then a little more pacing. I took two melatonin because I REALLY wanted to sleep that night. And actually, I got okay sleep... a few wake ups, but not awful.
Oh, and during one of those wake ups, just before midnight, Jay told me that he was able to get us FREE Vikings tickets and did I want to go? Um, DUH. Bad idea to go directly from running a marathon to a Vikings game? Probably. Didn't care- was SO excited!
To be continued... up next, Race Report!
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