The Night Before the Marathon

So tonight is the night before the marathon...

for the first time... i feel myself getting somewhat nervous about the marathon...

throughout the day i felt myself getting emotional and anxious... i started worrying about failing and all of the people who donated on my behalf with the expectation that i would finish...

i started feeling paranoid about my hamstrings, knees and ankles hurting...

basically i was just being crazy... lol

at the end of the day... i trained for 6 months... and i have to trust in that... i will pray for my safety and the safety for all of the other runners out there and hope for the best...

so today i went to the chicago marathon runners health and fitness expo to pick up my bib and timing chip...

the bib allows the crowd to identify you and the timing chip records your start and finish time...

the health and fitness expo had a ton of different vendors selling everything and anything even remotely related to running... there were a lot of booths providing information on how to get to the race, what to expect at the race, as well as rules and regulations...

one of the most unnerving moments while i was walking through the expo happened as i was going past the American Red Cross booth...

the woman asked me if i was running in the marathon and i said yes... and she took a card off of her table and handed it to me... she told me to take the card and to give it to someone close to me in chicago so that if something happens to me they will know what hospital i was taken to...

my face registered such horror that she immediately rushed to tell me that she was sure nothing would happen to me and that it was simply a precaution...

but it was to late! fear had already completely gripped me... lol...

i know that its absolutely necessary to have those type of precautions in place... especially after the disaster that was the 2007 chicago marathon... but the way she went about advising me was completely unnerving!

but at the end of the day, what can you do?... so i handed the card to my friend... and frantically checked the weather as soon as i got home... lol...

so here i am... a little over 10hrs away from the start time.... wish me luck!

see you at the finish line...