The Day Before & Expo

Friday morning, Debbie, Ashlyn, Cole, mom, dad, and I drove down to St. George. I stopped by a friend’s house and had lunch with her.  Then Deb and I went to the Expo.  I got my bib #, t-shirt, poster, and lots of memorabilia. I wanted to buy all things “St. George Marathon.” I went to the first time clinic to get any last minute information.  Then I went to a clinic for the pace groups.  They just gave general information for those interested in running with the pace group. This is where I found out that Star was the 4:30 pacer, not Theo. He was injured. The clinic made me nervous and confused.  They said they would run an even pace the whole time, walking through every water stop.  I liked the walking part because that was my plan too. The even pace concerned me because everything I had read, said to run St. George slower in the beginning at faster at the end (a negative split). 

Then it was time to carb load!  I passed on the all-you-can-eat pasta dinner.  My longs runs showed me that I can’t do pasta the night before.  I really wanted Rumbi Grill with brown rice, veggies, and chicken.  Problem was there wasn’t a Rumbi in St. George. I should have done my homework on that one.  We ended up at some type of “Hawaiian” place. The brown rice was served in two ice cream scoop balls that stuck together like glue.  The chicken was mediocre with a very jelly-like teriyaki sauce. I ate most of the rice, some of the chicken, and dumped the rest. I ended eating the rest of my turkey sandwich from lunch earlier that day. 

Here is my “delicious” dinner.  

Cole was so sweet to share a bite of his ice cream with me.  

Then it was time to head back to the hotel.  I had to lay out all my stuff for the morning and still decide what to wear. I had the choice of a bright yellow shirt or black tank top.  The bright yellow would be easy for my family to see but would cover more skin, making me hot.  The black would expose more skin but with the sun, might make me hotter.  I decided on the black because it was cooler and cuter.  We were having fun at this point.  I put on my bib, hat, and all my gear.  Ashlyn started taking pictures of me.  I wanted a before the marathon and after shot.  Ashlyn took it into her hands to become professional photographer.  I was her Gumby. She molded me in a very awkward pose. It ended up looking really good. I was having a blast. I started shouting, “This is my wedding dress! This is my wedding dress!”  Debbie was calling me a photo diva. I was having too much fun getting my picture taken.  

 I'm displaying by sweat rags (gross, I know) and all my GU energy gels.

At this point it’s about 8PM.  My plan was too wake up at 3AM. I really needed to get to sleep. It was a lot of work to get everything ready.  I had bags everywhere!  I think it was around 9 by the time I actually got to lay down.  Of course, I was tired and wide-awake at the same time.  I was told that it’s important to get a good night sleep Thursday night because I wouldn’t sleep Friday. I’m glad that I listened. I ended up getting about three and a half hours.  I just kept praying that I would get more than three hours because my horrible 19-mile run was with that much sleep.  At this point I didn’t care if I was one of the early birds on the shuttle bus up to the start line. Well, I was awake at 3AM and I was ready for my race day!