Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Yellow Bib


Yep, I missed blogging yesterday (and my b letter on my keyboard is sticking so if I have some odd words here, look to see if b belongs there...I have to bang the crap outta the b for it to work. Err). I didn't do anything exercise-wise, other than attend the lamest-of-lame expos for the marathon relay I am doing tomorrow. Sad! The shirt is even sadder. I'm one glad girl I'm not running the full marathon - the course is awful, the support's going to be pathetic, the weather's going to be hot, and we get lame shirts. No wonder Denver has a hard time getting a quality marathon going. Anyway, I met Dennis after work at the expo to get our race numbers. What a chaotic mess. I mean seriously, you'd think each leg would have the same colored bib (that was a tough word to get out...two b's). Dennis has been at the expo earlier in the day when he was out running and stopped by. They told him then that the color of the bib didn't matter. Confused, Dennis went and asked the race director; sure enough, no coordination of color to leg #. Which is totally nuts! By the time I got there later that evening, they had since decided that the color would match the leg (how many bibs went out earlier with no coordination is beyond any one's guess). I got yellow for leg #2. We walked around the expo for a mere 10 minutes, cuz that's was required to view it all, and as we were about to leave, I told Dennis that something wasn't sitting right with the colors and I wondered if those prior to me picking up their bibs had the wrong colors (all were previously picked up except for Alicia's). I went back to the check in area and asked someone that quasi looked like they might know what they was doing and asked what color each leg was. He has no idea. No surprise. Asked another woman with a little bit more authority with this race thing and she rambled off the colors. Yellow is suppose to be leg 1. I have yellow and I'm leg 2. Dennis tried to call Matt to see what color had but couldn't reach him. This color-knowledgeable woman now changes her tone and tells us that it really don't matter at all, as long as we all had the same number and got the leg chip from one runner to the next (this transfer of device is causing me a lot of anxiety!!). Well, all we can do is see!!

I had 13 miles to run on my plan, a quest I had actually requested myself. Yet as the days progressed and my manic schedule was not letting up, I knew that 13 was going to be drastically reduced. By the time Friday rolled around, it wasn't going to happen. I didn't even find it worth the effort to go run 4, which was about all I had time for.

Today, though, with a total rest day on my plan, I hopped over to the gym and did some weights and ran about 2 1/2 miles - just something to get the stiffness out of my legs. Get them ready for tomorrow's 4:40 wake-up call so that Mr. I-have-to-be-at-every-race-an-hour-earlier-than-needed is going to pick me up at 5:15. He's dropping me off at Matt's and, whenever Matt wakes up (doubtful he'll be up at 5:45 since he told Dennis to drop me off at 6:00), he's is taking me to my leg. I've never done a relay before. I've run countless marathons where there are relays mixed in but I'll be honest here, I have never paid attention to the transformation from one runner to the next....and I'm a wee-bit nervous how it all works. I guess if Dennis didn't have such high expectations set I could just be my normal, relaxed self (hahahah). My leg is #2, as stated above. As of Friday, we have a new teammate: Neil. Neil is the fiance of Sharon, who was initially leg #1. I don't know Neil, never met him. Have no idea what he looks like but he did tell me he'd have black shorts and a black shirt on. Hum. The saving grace here is that Neil runs an astonishing kick-ass 35ish 10K so most likely, he'll be one of the front runners. Unless Denver managed to recruit some elite marathoners, which is highly doubtful, he should be in the top 10 crossing, I'd suspect. Our plan is for the guy coming in to stick his foot out and the hand-off person to peel off the timing chip that is velcro'd around the ankle of the one that just ran. I think Dennis has given us about 3 seconds total in transition from one runner to the next. Yeah, okay. So now I'm off on my 3 miles uphill. The 5K's gotta be the worst race ever invented....now let's run 2 of those 3 miles uphill and see if Jill can gage on a lung. The 5K just hurts...plain and simply hurts!!!! My lungs really sting afterwards and I am coughing up a storm for hours after. Anyway, back to the strategy. I run to leg 3 where I will hand-off to Matt. I've met Matt a couple times and I'll see him in the morning so at least I'll know what he's wearing. But our now large lead is going to be greatly reduced due to my lung-sucking attempt to run 3 miles uphill. I'm afraid more than anything else, that I'm going to miss the hand-off area. I mean, how many times have I run past them in marathons past and not given them one iota of notice? What happens if I run past it? I'm going to have total panic about this. I am going to have to constantly think about mile 9.3 is where my exchange is. 9.3, NOT 3.1. So now Matt's going to have more of a challenge because I'm going to lose some time with my leg and more people will be coming through. Hopefully he can make up some time! So I will wait at the exchange point until Matt is done with his leg and he will jog back and pick me up and we'll drive to the finish area and find Dennis, who is running the last leg. Alicia is leg 4, she is fast, and she's only doing a 5K (somehow, she got the downhill leg. Dennis already got an earful on this...no need to say more. Other than, don't forget that I never forget, Dennis) so there's no way we'll end up seeing her run.

So there ya go, that's tomorrow's relay in a nutshell. Jealous you aren't getting up at 4:40 to do this?
Two low-points of my day: 1) while at the gym, I managed to pull my calf muscle doing some exercise. Major ouch! I stretched it most of the day when I could and I'm certain it's going to be fine, but wow...owie. It was just a matter of time; it's been on the cusp of popping and I'm just grateful it wasn't in Boston. Hopefully it's not serious; I need to get my rolly-pin out and give it a good 3 minute massage before I head to bed. 2) I spent $30 on Red and White M&M's (Abbey's school colors) for graduation. Don't even ask. Had I not pre-mixed them before I paid for them, I'd never have bought them.
I finally got all my flowers planted; took most of the afternoon. I got nothing done indoors, but my front yard is starting to look good.
Okay, so it's 10:30 and I have yet to get my stuff together for the race tomorrow...so off I go. Can't wait to tell ya all about it!
A huge congrats to Jonathan, who just ran the Ogden Marathon today in an incredible 3:32:16. A minute and some change off of BQing but I am super excited; he hadn't slept well all week and was only predicting a 3:41. I know he'll make in this year, I feel it! Btw, he's running LA Marathon in a mere 9 days. I'd still on the couch 9 days after my marathons :/
Weights: 1
run: 2 1/2 miles

1 comment:

jonathanmarathonman said...

You are too funny. This is a great post, made me laugh and smile. Yes the race sounds disorganized but have fun with your team and have fun on that 5K. You are amazing with all that you manage to pack in to this sport. Don't forget the ice bath afterwards and some OJ and sprite :) :) I slept until 7 am but now I am absolutely starving, not as sore as I thought and will do some stretching. Make it a great day ! thanks for reading my blog, Jill.