Lincoln Marathon - Prerace

We are one week out from the Lincoln Marathon and it's time to start thinking about things for the race.

Karyn and I will be running it together. It will be her first marathon since we ran the Country Music Marathon in 2001. I believe she has trained well for it and will have a good day, the question is probably can I keep up with her? The weather forecast is for a high of 67 degrees and rain. Doesn't sound too bad, sure beats CMM 2001 where we got to enjoy a beautiful sunny (like no clouds at all) 85 degree day. The only problem we had with the heat were our zero days of heat acclimation, I think the hottest run we had coming into it was one run in the mid 60's. So we made the choice to go out slow and to take our time, it worked fairly well as we finished with no issues.

I do like a lot of things about the Lincoln marathon, they charge $70 which includes on-line reservation (meaning no extra fees to register on-line, it is included in the entry, something all marathons should do). If you mail in a reservation, they charge $80. They have sent out 2 or 3 informational emails concerning the race with things like showers will be available, you will finish on the 50 yard line of Memorial Stadium (home to the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football team). Something tells me that when we finish it probably won't quite have this many folks cheering on us on.

Here is the list of other things we get for our money for this race (not a bad deal for a road marathon).

PARTICIPANTS RECEIVE:

• medal for finishers
• night-before pastathon
• dri-fit shirt to all entrants
• single-use chip
  
• food and beverages at finish
• runners' expo
• finish time and place shortly after the race
• individual finisher photos (prints must be bought from photo company)
• post-race celebration and awards ceremony
• post-race massages available on a first come-first serve basis (marathoners only).
  

The only negative I saw to the race is that we run the first 13 miles with the half marathon'ers and there will be a whole lot more of them so I expect a bit more congestion than I would like. They allow 8000 runners, most are in the half marathon. So once we get through the first half, it should be much more relaxing for me.

One thing, I need to resolve is which shoes am I going to wear, sounds familiar I know but I will explain. I only have one pair of road shoes and I officially retired those once already. I did make a token attempt to buy another pair but I didn't like the way they fit so as of right now, I plan to wear my trail shoes, I think I will be fine with them. I will take my old road shoes though just in case I change my mind. I do plan on trying the foot stuff Les showed me at Psycho Wycho last year. It is a mixture of Vaseline and Desitin, I am not sure of the exact ratios but I think he said it isn't critical and anything should be, no make that might be, better than nothing. I may try it once before the marathon on one of mid week runs or I may just wing it and try it on marathon day. I haven't done anything really stupid along this line for years.

One thing I don't like doing is tapering but for this race I decided to do it as I figured I might be a little beat up still from McNaughton. The only physical thing that concerns me at all is the calf, it seems ok when I run but is still tender when I rub it (by hand or with the stick) and it occasionally bugs me when I am just sitting around.

Always nice to have something to worry about heading into a marathon. Good news is that what worries me heading into a race usually doesn't cause me problems, bad news is something else usually does.