Marathon Me

On Saturday I went to sign up for the hotel shuttle to take me to the start of the Rock and Roll San Diego Marathon, but it turns out I learned nothing from Rock and Roll Arizona (where we waited too long to sign up for the shuttle and had to take a cab). This time, I hadn’t waited too long to get on the shuttle, but too long to get a time considered reasonable by any normal human being (other than Paul and Nancy, of course).

The times they offered were 4:30 am or 6:15 am. Hmmm…let me think about that: the race started at 6:30, it was a 15-30 minutes drive to the start… hmmm… nope! 6:15 wasn’t going to work for me, so 4:30 am it would be. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What time is the shuttle to the race?
Hotel: The only thing left is 430 or 615.
Me: Who do I look like - Paul Williams? Grumble, grumble…

Okay, the first part was in my mind, but I’m pretty sure the grumbling was out loud. For those of you who don’t know me or Paul, we are quite different in what times we like to get to the start of a race, but fairly compatible in most other aspects.

Paul likes to get up before the roosters and make sure the starting line has been properly set up, get a good parking space, and in general insure he doesn’t have to worry about missing the start.

I, on the other hand, prefer to sleep as late as possible and spent the minimum time at the race start before it actually starts. My ideal would be to wake up, shower, get dressed, eat some pop tarts (in the car), park, walk from the car to the start in time for the national anthem and then go.

One time we all ran in New Hampshire and we were sharing a car to the start. It was a pretty small marathon so I pushed for a late departure and Paul pushed for an earlier one. I think the race started at 7am, and we were staying 5 minutes way, so I thought 6:45 would be a great time. Paul, I think,wanted 5:45, so we compromised on 6:15. Or so I thought. What really happened is that Paul and Nancy came knocking on the door a little before 6. We suspected this would happen, so we were almost ready anyway. We finished getting ready, headed out and got there super early, which made Paul happy and me tired. =)

So… back to San Diego. After I finished crying in the lobby, I called to see if Scott had gotten on the shuttle (he was staying in a different hotel), and it turned out he didn’t. He would be taking a cab and getting a lot more sleep.

I got to the race about 4:50 am, so I had about an hour and 40 minutes to hang out, wait, complain, and think about how tired I was. But the day turned out pretty well for me. Race report to follow.

Frank

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Tags: General, Marathons, On the road again... //