Let’s go… Slaho!

I don’t work well with little sleep.  I’m groggy, I’m cranky, and I have a tough time focusing on doing my job correctly.  So now, picture this.  I’m waking up at 3:15 am for the second day in a row.  Again I barely slept… maybe it was nerves, maybe fear of oversleeping, maybe it’s because my bed was about as comfortable as a lingering wedgie that you just can’t pick because you’re afraid someone’s gonna catch you doing it.  Whatever the reason I barely slept.  For the third night in a row.  And my inability to nap, on top of being tired from a long drive on Friday compounded with the need to change a tire on I-95, AND on top of the fact that I did after all run 13.1 miles less than 24 hours earlier just magnified my fatigue.  Pure adrenaline got me out of bed.  That, and the fact that I promised Ivan that I’d pick him up and take him to the race so that his wife wouldn’t have to wake up, get ready, and drive the man with his kids in tow to the park.  I had everything laid out this time, making sure that I was ready and that I wouldn’t have to triple check everything like I did the morning before.  Then at 3:40 am I stepped out of my room… straight into 29 degrees with a wind chill sub 20 degrees. 

I did come EXTRA prepared knowing it was going to be even colder than the day before.  I decided to wear TWO pairs of warmups while I waited for the race with the intention of shedding them both at the start.  I brought two power bars: one for me and one for Ivan.  I figured he wouldn’t be ready and I was right.  He hadn’t eaten and wasn’t planning to before the race… a big no-no for such a long run.  We had the same traffic problems as the day before but still got there easy enough and headed in to the waiting area.  I noted that I wasn’t as cold as the day before.  I figured it was more than anything because I had lived through the shock of the initial hit I took the day before when I got to the race site.  We looked for and found Javi who again was hooking me up with the disposable lab coat.  The extra layer would be key today, at least for the beginning of the race.
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3:15 Saturday morning… time to get out of bed. Many who know me have heard me say it. Whenever I see 3:15 on a clock I feel like it’s God telling me He’s watching me. I made sure 3:15 was the time I saw on the clock when I got up (maybe it was cheating because I set it up that way, but hey! It works for me… and for those wondering why 3:15 it’s because 3/15 was the day God sent me head first into this world… literally!!)

So, I was now getting myself ready. Many layers of clothing… check. My shot blocks and supplements… check. D-tag on correctly… check. Bib… check. Newly glued Jesus porcelain thingy… check. It seemed I had everything. Still, after yesterday I wasn’t taking any chances. I tripled checked everything to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. I got a wake up call from Javi to make sure I didn’t oversleep. I was awake. I was good. He mentioned it was clear out. I reminded him that it wasn’t 3:30 I was worried about. It was 5:30 and I wasn’t taking any chances. I had to make a stop before getting to the race area. I was going to CVS. I was going to get trash bags. I didn’t have a raincoat, and I was looking for a cheap way to stay dry. I stopped at CVS at just before 4 and got myself a 20 pack (the smallest they had). I figure I’d share with my comrades and that I’d bring the rest home work their original purpose. While there I also decided that it was a good time to replace my dog eaten shades. (I’m not sure if I had mentioned I replaced the shades in my other blog… if I did, now you know exactly when I replaced them)
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Job.
That’s what my running partner was calling me the day before the race. I felt like him too. Everything seemed to going against me the days before my Goofy quest to run 39.3 miles over a two day period in Disney World. Some of it was my own doing I think, particularly the mind games I was making myself go through. Some of it was just plain old dumb luck. And I was really beginning to believe that God really didn’t want to me to run that weekend.
Here’s a small recap of what happened in the couple of weeks leading up to the race.
It started with me going to buy a pair of new running shoes. I had just come back from visiting Javi, my long distance running counterpart, who I somehow wound up training with more than anybody from here in Miami (and the person I trained with the most after him lives in Gainesville… is there nobody I can train with in Miami?). Upon returning I realized my shoes had seen their last days. So I went to buy new shoes. Problem was that my wife had lost her ATM card and the new one hadn’t come in yet so I had to take cash out to buy the shoes. I went to the bank and withdrew $200, some for my shoes and some for whatever else I was to buy until the cards arrived. Well, I bought my shoes all right, but apparently I left the envelope at the register when I left… so my $100 shoes turned into my $200 shoes. I was bitter to say the least. And little did I know but this was just the beginning. (more…)