Friday the 13th...Prologue

I am not a superstitious person, but Friday WAS Friday the 13th...and well everything pre-race day seemed to go poorly. Me and my friend JM were headed down to Hartford that evening, to pick up our race packets, eat a sensible dinner and ideally take in an early night.

Last year me, JM, and 'zilla were racing and instead of heading down early, picking up our packets then getting dinner...we got dinner and then had to race against time in a torrential downpour to get our race packets. We got our packets 2 mins before they closed. This year JM and I decided to get down to Hartford, pick up the packets then head to dinner...minimize the running against the clock.

Getting out of town took longer than we thought, but we weren't too far off schedule. Get to Hartford, go to check into our hotel only to realize that the hotel we *thought* we were booked into which was within walking distance of the race start, was NOT the hotel we were staying at. Same chain...but the reservation got bumped to another branch 5 miles away from the race start. We decided that if bad things are going to happen, the day before the race is when they should happen...so we rolled with it.

Head to packet pickup. We get lost...park...walk around forever...realize we are not close to where we need to be, have to then navigate our way to where we are going amongst traffic and parking issues due to a professional hockey game going on. Fun times. Again...we remind ourselves if this is the worst...all will be well.

By the time we grab our packets, we are pretty much starving. We had decided on a standard chain sort of restaurant as it is a known entity and most likely will have food that won't harm us for the race the next day. We call ahead to the restaurant...45mins-1 hour. Yikes...that's not going to happen. So we figure that since most stretches of the interstates in this country are LINED with chain restaurants, CT would be the same. No such luck. We hop on the highway end up driving another 30mins, getting on and off the highway at places that say 'food' yet we can't find anything that looks familiar to us and by this point are super cranky.

We pick a place that seems as innocuous as we could, even though it didn't fit the 'chain' restaurant status. By now it is 815 and we could have just gotten into the other place...sigh. We both find the most boring food on the menu...meaning something that would be the least likely to upset one's stomach for running the next day as I was doing the half and JM was running the full marathon. Finally success.

During our enjoyment of the lovely, very boring food, I realize I have forgotten my tooth brush, toothpaste, anti-teeth grinding mouth guard, contact case, and contact solution. Also my little 'non-sickness' allergy thing has decided that I will start coughing for no apparent reason. We first call it fake coughing as there is no reason for it...and then it starts to irritate my lungs then giving my body a reason to cough. We then added cough drops to the list. Everything except the teeth grinding issue can be addressed at Walmart down the street from our boring dinner (which we love, because it did no harm), and we finally head back to the hotel.

It was a fiasco but we reminded ourselves, that if something bad was going to happen, it was THEN it should happen as race day we were hoping would go smoothly for both of us.

Tune in later for the RR...hopefully tomorrow. :-)