The Day Before

The day before the marathon is pretty much the most important day of training. There's not usually a lot of running involved... none if you are sick like I was. :) But there is lots of eating and drinking to do!

I started the day with lucky pumpkin pancakes. I've learned you don't want to eat lots of fruits and veggies the day before, so sneaking some pumpkin into my pancakes was a yummy & healthy way to start the day. Plus, I'm Irish, so I'm all about luck.


In the 2 days before the race I think I drank 3 large bottles of V8 V-Fusion. I'm not usually a big juice person, but I wanted to load up on Vitamin C. It is actually pretty good... might be better with some vodka. But we'll save that for another day.


Lunch was a big bowl of pasta with marinara. Every race has a pre-race pasta dinner, but eating a big dinner leaves you very little time to digest. And no one wants to be digesting all over the race course. A better bet is to have a big carby lunch so your body has time to digest and you don't show up to the start weighed down by pasta.


Dinner was at Minsky's and I'm sad I didn't take any pictures because it was a lot of fun. My parents, Drew's parents, Brooke, Bryan, and Jack met us out for pizza. Brooke and I ordered Nature's Choice and asked them to go light on the cheese. Have you had Minsky's?? It is probably always best to ask them to go light on the cheese, but especially before a race. Something else I know about myself is that I shouldn't eat meat before a race. I had some chicken for dinner on Thursday for the iron and protein and whatever else is in there, but layed off on Friday.
Then I came home and layed out all my gear for in the morning. Included: new green shirt (matches Brooke's!!!), race number, capris, chip, lucky purple sports bra, and St. Sabastian necklace. Not shown: pretty purple Mizunos, socks, and underwear... because do you really need to see that? Note: don't try out new underwear on race day. Trust me.

I'm Catholic, which you may or may not know comes with certain perks... such as a Patron Saint for just about everything. Saint Sabastian is the patron saint of athletes. My mom gave me this medallian before my first marathon and I've worn it to every one since.

Worst picture ever taken:

I also put together goodie bags for my parents and Drew to carry on the course which included Sharkies, Luna Moons, GU, candy, granola bars, Vaseline, Ibuprofin, and wet wipes. I like to have choices of food to eat when I'm running. Then I set the coffee pot for 5:00 AM and went to bed. I only slept a couple of hours because I was so nervous. That's why it is so important to get lots of sleep the week of the race. You want to get extra to make up for missed sleep the night before.