Let’s start with yesterday first. I went to the Long Beach Marathon Health and Fitness Expo at the Convention Center to pick up my bib number. Having signed up for the half marathon months ago, I received a red bib number and since I decided to switch to the full marathon, I had to complete a new Scantron card at the late registration desk. I had to pay an extra $20, given a yellow bib number, then pointed towards the Solutions desk where they took the red bib number (7022) and logged in my new number (4118). I guess that means that there are about 5,000 or less people doing the marathon with the rest of the 20,000 participants doing the half marathon, 5k, and the Kids 1 mile. Then it was off to pick up my technical T-shirt and goodie bag. I went a couple of rounds to look at the merchandise that the vendors were selling but didn’t find anything interesting to spend any money unnecessarily for. It seemed like there were slightly more vendors this year but lesser freebies to give. So I didn’t hang around long and headed back home. Inside and outside the Convention Center, I saw and said hello to Johan, Nancy, Nadine, Hugo, Roberta, Greg, and Andrea, plus a couple more people whose names I don’t know (sorry). Later in the evening at home I did karaoke for more than an hour, sandwiched between a couple of movies, to relax. I also laid out all the equipment I need for Sunday morning.
Today, the D-tag will have been attached to my shoe, bib number pinned to my singlet, waist pack checked for ID, gels and candy, GPS watch, MP3 player and cell phone charged, Gatorade mixed, throw away old sweatshirt readied, and alarm clock set for 4 a.m. The marathon website will be reviewed again for the nth time. Much later, I may watch the movie “Without Limits” (bought years ago from the bargain bin of Walmart), and maybe “The Fred Lebow Story” again, for inspiration. I don’t think I have the “Saint Ralph” movie any more.
I’m just wondering if this has any effect on running a marathon: our circadian rhythms in the past few months are used to doing long runs every other weekend on a Saturday, then suddenly our bodies have to wait an extra week plus a day to do it again. Any thoughts on that?
1 comment:
hi Noel, We're going to rock this marathon! I thought about the Saturday early AM wakeup too. Today, I got up at 5am, just like I did all summer!
I think we'll be ok. When I trained for the L.A. Marathon, I ran long either Saturday or Sunday because it would rain on Saturdays, and it felt the same. Sometimes the Sunday runs were much better because I got that extra day of rest.
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