Boston Marathon 2011: Pre-Race

Perhaps a little overdue, but here it is nevertheless.  Working and driving to and from work along with sleeping has pretty much become my life as of late.  I am befuddled as to how to get on a consistent training plan with continuous curve balls at work that delay my 12 hour shifts to 14's and my 8's to 10's. 

Anyway, I worked my 45 hours the week before Boston and definitely felt run down by the end of the week with a little bit of a sore throat.  I thought maybe I was a little dehydrated, but by Friday morning I was achy and my throat was worse.  My sinuses felt a little clogged and I was exhausted.  I talked to e-speed about even getting on the plane (didn't want to spend 4 days away from home with full blown flu and take the chance of making my roomies sick too!), but she easily persuaded me to at least come out and see how I would feel. 

Each day after, I felt about the same crappy, crappy and crappy.  I was torn between exploring the expo and all the awesome places Boston had to offer or just crawling into bed and trying to save all my strength for Monday.  I convinced myself this was such a great opportunity and I made it out for some wonderful Boston moments.

I haven't been on a plane for probably five or six years and there is a reason...I hate flying.  I hate heights and I always think the plane is going down!  I had 2 super cool guys from Canton on my flight who had run Boston before and were telling me their stories.  I was the first girl to arrive from our group and when I got to baggage claim, this was my first sign it was really going to happen -- I was going to get my shot at the Boston Marathon!!

The first night we hit up the hotel restaurant Connexions and I got to try a lobster roll and an Oatmeal Stout beer

The next morning we had our traditional SERC photo:

The Expo (where the famous BB found the last freakin' Boston 2011 jacket for me)

We had an awesome brunch in Cambridge where we met another future Boston marathoner, also a nurse (YAY!!)

The night before the race we had a killer dinner at Pappa Razzi's and on the way home we walked backwards through the finish.  I was able to get one last look at that big blue banner

and the finish line I so desperately hoped I could get to tomorrow morning. 

Lots of nice people in Boston offered to take pics of all the crazy runners and their friends, such as myself who wanted a kodak moment of their trip (this one was the night before the race)

We stopped off at the local supermarket near our hotel and I got more airborne (I had been drinking all of e-speed's), vitamin C pills and zinc in hopes by some miracle I would feel better by 10:30am tomorrow.  I laid down dead tired and passed out within 5 minutes, hoping 5:15 am would not come for another 3 days, but by 4:30 am the anticipation of race morning had crept into our room and some of us just couldn't sleep, so we all got up.  I felt about the same, crappy, my throat was still sore, my joints were achy, my sinuses felt a little clogged and I was still having chills on and off.  I laid in bed watching everybody bustle about the room debating if I should even get out of bed, trying to find the right answer in my heart to run or not to run.  I didn't want to bring anybody down or make them worry, but when your sick you don't do a marathon, you don't do a 26.2 mile training run, you just don't get out of bed, unless you absolutely have to!!