The Odyssey--The Jitters

It became the running joke within my family that I was obsessively trying to control as much of the marathon experience as I possibly could. I had the race route committed to memory, the breakfast strategy in place, and even a listing of all the street closures ready for my dad who would drive and drop my brother and I off near the starting line at 4:15am.

Partly in order to calm my nerves, my brother even drove us down to the starting area on the way home from our carbo loading dinner so that I could clearly see how sections of the street were marked off to indicate where runners who ran a 2-3 hour marathon should stand vs. those who would run 3-4 hours, 4-5, or more than 5.

Still, even with all the details arranged and accounted for, I can't say that I slept very well that night. Falling asleep around 9:30pm, I woke at 12:30am, 1:30, 2 and 2:30 before finally rolling out of bed at 3:15. The funny thing was that when I did get out of bed I wasn't tired at all.

Ain't adrenaline is a wonderful thing?