Pre-Marathon Prep

I figure I can drag the marathon talk out for another two posts before I need to accept that it is over (sad!) and time to move on to future goals (exciting!). So today we'll cover the day before and morning of the marathon.

My anxiety was sky high on Saturday. I was so thankful that I had a really messy house to deal with and visitors arriving to distract me from freaking out. I let myself wake up without an alarm, as I assumed I wouldn't be getting the best night's sleep on Saturday I wanted to get at least a solid 8 hours on Friday, and that was pretty glorious. Another thing I wanted to do was enjoy a leisurely breakfast so I decided to try a new play on my oh-so-favorite Greek yogurt pancakes. I had 3/4 of a container of 0% plain Chobani in my fridge so I felt like the possibilities were endless!

My inspiration was my pre-run snack from Friday:

PB&Co. courtesy of a box of goodies I won from Chelsea of Chelsea's Healthy Kitchen. So delicious!

I mixed up my usual GY pancake batter (3 oz. Greek yogurt, 1 egg white, 1/4 c. whole wheat flour, 1/2 tsp. baking soda) and then I added in:
 1/2T. of the Dark Chocolate Dreams
 1/2T sweetened shredded coconut (since I was using plain yogurt)
 1/2t. vanilla extract
~7 slices of banana, broken up

I dolloped my batter in the pan and added some extra banana slices while they cooked. For my dipping sauce I mixed together the remaining Greek yogurt and a bit more of the dark chocolate dreams PB. I also sliced up the rest of the banana on the side.

Breakfast is served!

I'm glad I fit in my relaxing breakfast because as soon as I finished eating I was cleaning like a mad woman! I spent the next four hours doing laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing the bathtub, doing dishes, dusting, etc. before I knew it I only had ~20 minutes to shower and be ready for the arrival of my first visitor! 

Once my friend KT arrived (who was running her very first half marathon), we hit up the expo (which was super crowded and nothing to write home about) and the grocery store and came home to start making a big pasta dinner. My wonderful cousin and aunt had driven down to come cheer me on so they joined us and K. for dinner. I stuffed myself with pasta and then we all sat down to look at the course map, determine where they could see me and work on my playlist. By 10p I was in bed and I felt like a kid on Christmas eve!

When my alarm went off at 4:47a I was ready to go! It was a bit colder than I was hoping (probably should have turned on the heat) but I still managed to pop out of bed and get right into my race morning routine. As soon as I got downstairs I realized that I felt good- no aches, no pains, no stomach issues. I was cautiously optimistic at this point. I toasted up two pieces of whole wheat bread and smothered them with PB + blackberry jam, I ate almost all of that (a larger pre-run breakfast than usual, but since nutrition has been an issue I wanted to make sure I was FULL). I washed it down with a 20oz of half Vitamin Water Revive/half water. At about 5:45 I started to get dressed. For my race outfit I wanted removable layers- I've really come to prefer running in shorts + a tank so that was my base layer, but when we left the house I was wearing:

Moving Comfort Juno sports bra
Moving Comfort Flex tank
Moving Comfort Momentum shorts (I'm just now realizing that I was head to toe MC, they do make some of the best running clothes!)
Pro Compression Arm Sleeves
Pro Compression Calf Sleeves
Mizuno Wave Inspire 9s (which are officially retired from my rotation now)
C9 Cold weather headband
throwaway sweatpants
throwaway zip down hoodie
throwaway wind breaker
gloves

It was the perfect amount of clothes for the ~35 degree morning we were having!

I loaded my pockets with a variety of fuel- I didn't want to end up having my body reject one flavor of Shot Bloks (it's been known to happen to me in race) and be left with nothing, so I took half a package of black cherry, half a package of fruit punch and half a package of pomegranate Honey Stinger energy chews. I put the remaining halves into another baggy for K. to have in case I wanted to grab them from him on the course. I filled up a water bottle with plain water, grabbed my Garmin + HRM, iPod and sunglasses and we headed out the door. 

To Be Continued...