Before I went to bed, I set the alarm clock for 4am. In order to be on time for a 6am race located almost an hour away, I figured that might be cutting it kind of close, but on the same token, I also couldn’t fathom waking up at an hour with the digit ‘3′ in front of it. So 4am it was.

I slept remarkably well considering I’m not used to going to bed at 8:30pm. Didn’t really have any pre-race anxiety, and although I woke up briefly a couple times, all I did was glance at the clock and go right back to sleep. Finally at about 3:20am, I woke up and was feeling anxious enough that going back to sleep wasn’t an option. I laid there for 20 minutes soaking up my last few moments of rest before engaging in my pre-race rituals.

Since everything was neatly laid out from the night before, I didn’t have to waste much bandwidth in getting out the door. I chugged a 36oz Gatorade while popping an assortment of vitamins and ibuprofen, chasing them down with bites from a dry blueberry bagel. The Gatorade went down quickly and it would be the last thing I drank prior to the race, which was still 2hrs away. No over-hydration like I’ve done in past marathons (I thought)… In both NYC marathons I’ve been forced to stop and pee against the wall of the Verrazano bridge immediately after completing the 1st mile. Of course I ended up stopping to pee mid-race anyway, and in keeping with tradition, found a nice overpass to urinate on.

But I digress. After finishing my food/beverage/vitamin intake, I took a hot shower. As I’ve mentioned before, the pre-long run hot shower is my ace in the hole. Wakes me up, warms up the muscles. I dried off and tried on my race clothes, which at this point had been downgraded to just a long sleeve tech shirt and running shorts (down from a tank top, 2 long sleeves, a pair of Asics tights and a pair of shorts). I had to remind myself, even though Florida has experienced a particularly cold winter, it’s still Florida, so why was I even considering dressing like it was nyc. Then I went outside to check out the temps and confirmed my choice in garb. Then it was out the door and off to Tampa…

J