Race mornings you’ll either find me tearing the house apart looking for some Shot Blocks or sitting calmly eating a bagel and waiting for my time to head out the door. I can never predict if I’ll be a frantic mess or a zen being ready to run, so I try to prepare myself as best I can ahead of time.
First, I like to start with a little list making:
Yes, I remind myself to check the weather.
There have been a couple of times that I’ve ran out of the house dressed for the wrong race. If my house is hot, I’ve assumed it’s hot out. If there’s a sprinkler on, I think it’s raining. So now I check the weather the night before and set out appropriate attire. By the way, tomorrow is going to be perrrrrfect at 7 AM.
I picked up my bib earlier today at Track Shack. I managed to sign up early enough to get my name of my bib. And check out that nice low, even number. This must mean good things lie ahead, right?
I picked up my favorite local pre-race dinner on my way home from work: the baked chicken entree from Black Bean Deli. It comes with yellow rice, black beans and a small salad. It’s a giant serving so I’ll only eat 1/2 of it. When I posted my dinner choice on Facebook and friend joked that they certainly wouldn’t want to run behind me. Silly boy, doesn’t he know I’m Puerto Rican? Beans are like water to me. Seriously though, if anything were to happen to me while running this half, I want to know that I left this great world with rice and beans in me. 🙂
Afterwards I stopped and picked up one bagel from the Publix bakery for my breakfast in the AM. Yes, ONE bagel. We don’t buy bread for the house any more because we don’t eat it much, so if I bought an entire pack of bagels it would go to waste. I know this because I’ve wasted many a pack of bagels.
Next I came home and tossed my running clothes in the washer and started to plug in all of my electronic devices. My iPod Shuffle is charging and my Garmin is plugged in as I type. My running belt, sunnies, sunblock and earbuds are laying out so I don’t forget them.
And while I waited for D to get home so we could have dinner, I ate a fortune cookie from last night’s Chinese dinner.
This is so perfect in so many ways.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to cross that start line and do just that: what I can, with what I have, where I am.
Good luck tomorrow to all my fellow runners of the Orlando Half Marathon!
I Sweat Pretty 