Runner #6148 - ready for battle

First off....thank you Sean Casey and Kenny Rogers for being the only players to show up for the Tigers in the World Series.

Never in a million years would I have believed you if you told me that Jeff Weaver (of all people) would beat the Tigers to win the World Series, let alone this season. Oh well, hats off to the Cardinals, they deserved it. I'm sad that the Tigers didn't win it, but hey...everybody expected them to maybe get back to .500 and that's it....so I'm not mad, I'm impressed! Now it's back to reality, the Tigers are done and we can cheer for the Red Wings and Pistons now.

Sooooo you may have heard that there's this marathon tomorrow or something, I don't know. But I'm pretty excited for it!

Yesterday morning I did a simulated easy run of 3 miles. I say simulated because I wore the same shorts and shoes that I'm gonna run in tomorrow, as well as the same configuration on top (technical t-shirt and long sleeve shirt plus gloves....though not the same ones). I ran at 7:15am and it was 39 with a wind chill of 34....perfect. At first I was freezing due to the shock of going from my protective house to the outdoors, but after about a half mile I was fine. The whole run was fine, and the only complaint I had was that my hands were rock hard even with gloves on. (Mental note - bring a couple more pairs of gloves to the race). It was also funny seeing all the weird looks from people who were bundled up and walking to their 8am classes.

I've been watching the weather report like a mad man since the beginning of the week. Today is supposed to be horrible, mostly because of the rain and the WIND! Damn the wind! The consensus is winds of 20-30mph with possible gusts up to 50, and there's a wind advisory out until 7am tomorrow...right when the race is about to start. As of right now, weather.com is saying the rain will be gone tonight, and at 7am it will be partly cloudy, 37 degrees with a wind chill of 27, and winds out of the west at 17mph. As far as I'm concerned, that's not too bad.

Yesterday I went down to pick up my race number and tour the little expo that they had. I bought tearaway pants and jackets from Sport Shell, which makes their clothing out of the same stuff that insulates houses. I figure I'll be alright once I start running (as I was yesterday morning), but there will be a time when I'll be standing around in the starting corrall. Plus they were only $7 each so I won't be bashful about tossing them to the curb in the middle of the race if I have to.

Ok, so you wanna know my race day strategy, huh? Well...simply put, slow and controlled. Well, slow for me. BQ pace is 7:14/mile and even though I know I can go 7 minutes or under per mile (as witnessed in my 20 miler), I know the cold and wind will dictate my pace. It may screw up my splits a little bit, but I'll just have to adjust to that. On the parts where the wind is against us, I'll try to tuck in behind a pack of runners to take away some wind resistance, but when we're with the wind I'll try to just glide with it. Common sense.

Here's a pdf file of the course map, and I'll end this with a couple of quotes. The first is from my friend Steve, who just ran 2:57 in Chicago and emailed me to give me some advice on the marathon, and the second one is one that will definitely come in handy tomorrow.

"Seconds lost early in a marathon are minutes gained later." --Steve, on being slow and controlled.

"Sometimes the wind is against me. I breathe it only because I have to. I suck it in and spit it out cursing, but today we're going the same way. And it's everything I can do stay on the ground." -- Advertisement for Reebok