MCM Pre-Race

I'll start off with saying that I did PR!!  I beat my old MCM race by 42 minutes!!  How awesome is that?  Well pretty damn awesome if you ask me.  Now my new marathon PR is 4:56:33!!!!  I wanted a sub 5 hour marathon so bad, and I earned it on Sunday!  I am so proud of ME!!

The days leading up to this marathon were a bit stressful, not because I was nervous really about the race, I was more nervous about Sandy.  The weather peeps kept saying that it was going to make landfall sometime on Sunday, and as of Saturday night, the rain chance was 90% at 8am.  Like I've said before, I don't mind a good rain, but for the full 26.2 was not going to be fun.  Neither would it have been fun for my race crew to stand around in the rain for almost 5 hours.

We arrived in Old Town Alexandria on Saturday afternoon around lunch time.  If you've never been to Old Town, I highly suggest it.  I absolutely love that part of D.C.

The expo was first on the list.  As soon as we found out we couldn't check into our room yet, we headed down to the metro station to ride to the D.C. Armory to get our packets.  (Remember, the hubby couldn't run, but he had to get his free shirt!!)  After packet pickup, we headed across the street to the expo.  They had them in separate places, which made perfect sense, but they didn't really make that known until you got up close to the armory, they directed us in the right direction, but if they would've had signs, people wouldn't have been as confused.  Anyway, packet pick up was a breeze, and the expo was huge.  It was great, and I love a good expo.  There were lots of people there, which made it difficult at times (we even lost the kid once), but we looked around and didn't buy a thing.  The hubby made the comment that he couldn't believe I didn't buy anything, but honestly, I didn't see anything that I needed.

After the expo we headed back to Old Town to eat some lunch, well more like a late lunch, early dinner.  I was a little concerned with that, but we went to a place called Red Rocks Pizza and it was DE-Licious!!!!  I mean seriously, it was awesome.  I'm not a HUGE pizza fan, I like some weird stuff on my pizza, and I can't even remember what I ordered, but I got my own personal pizza and ate every last bite.  I also drank the entire pint of water they put on the table.  We walked around a bit, but I didn't want to wear out my legs, so we headed back to the hotel to relax.

Saturday evening, I basically stalked the weather, and put my race gear together.  That is really it.  I was having some issues with my Spi-Belt for my Chomps.  I didn't know what to do, I had a picture in my mind, but it wasn't a very good one once I got it together.  The hubby offered a little pouch to put on the belt that had a zipper, and it worked perfect, I just pinned it to the front of my belt, put all my Chomps in there, and I was good to go.  I think he intended to wear it in D.C. the next day so he wouldn't have to carry his wallet, but he gave it to me, and said that it was ok if I wore it.  How awesome is he?  Pretty dang awesome if you ask me.  The hubby and I also got together and he went over the mile markers he thought he'd try and see me at.  At the expo we both picked up the 5 hour pace group bracelets.  When I picked up the 5 hour bracelet, and saw a picture of the guy that was the pacer.  I told the lady that I was going to make sure he was in my rear view for the race. (She didn't think that was funny at all, I'm not sure why).  The hubby circled the miles that I needed to start looking for him.  At first I kinda thought it was silly, I thought I could remember what miles, but when I was running the thing, I was so happy he did circle them!!  I sent my pic of my race gear to Pam, and I told her it was official, I was running 26.2 in the morning.  Her response?  "You sure as hell are!!!"  She's super awesome, I mean seriously awesome.  Between her and the hubby, I really have the best support crew anyone could ask for.  Seriously.

This is my race outfit!  

After I got my race gear together, I ate my pizza that I bought from a local pizza place from home.  I ate it the night before my second 20 miler and I did well that day.  When I told the hubby what I had, he told me then that maybe that should be my pre-race meal.  So on Friday afternoon I bought two slices to go of their spinach, artichoke, feta, and pesto pizza to go.  I ate just one of them that night since I was still pretty full from the pizza I had earlier.  So I ate, then soon after I called it a night.  We had an early wake up call 4:30 am, so it was lights out.

Race report to come shortly...