Score!

I love race Expos. I'm the one that likes to just look at everything... check out all the booths... sample all the food. Today was no different.

First I picked up my race packet.

The 500 Festival Mini-Marathon is the largest half marathon in the US with a 40,000 participant limit. I'm not sure if it actually sold out this year but it is always very crowded. This year they are doing wave starts for the first time. Hopefully that will lessen the congestion. We are assigned to corrals A-Z depending on your projected finish time. I always start out of either D or E. The elites will start out of A. You had to have turned in a finish time of under 1:45 to get into the C corral. Maybe one day...  but for tomorrow, I'm just excited I made the first wave.

After picking up my bib, I looked around. I ended up buying this shirt...

front

 



back

 

My local running store Blue Mile had lots of running shoes for sale. I really need to replace my shoes. They had the Brooks Ghost 6 in my size on their sale rack for $89.99 (regularly $110). The color was gawd awful. Why can't they make running shoes in normal colors like blue or white? Anyway, I couldn't decide and then decided I would look online first to see if they came in any more palatable colors.

 

Next stop was the Goodwill store where I got my throw away jacket. Then I stopped by the actual Blue Mile store to pick up some gels. I had my three $10 gift cards that I'd won in my races this month. When you win the gift cards, you are told you can use them together, however every time I've tried to use them, no one at the store can figure out how to ring up more than one at a time so they always make me do separate transactions, hence I always end up buying a bunch of little things like gels. Today, just for kicks, I asked the guy at the register if he could combine them. I'd already picked out $10 worth of little things cause I was sure he was going to say "no." Surprise, surprise... he said he could do two together... but not three. Well, I really need shoes. "Do you have the Brooks Ghost 6?" He did. In the same gawd awful color. "Will you match the sale price from the Expo?" (They were marked $110 in the store.) He would. So I used $20 in gift cards for the shoes and got $10 of other stuff.

 



Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my purchase. I'm sure I'll have to replace these shoes in another 6 months anyway with some other gawd awful color! The photo makes the shoes look better than they do in real life. They have a fluorescent yellow-green tinge on the sides.

So I guess I'm ready to run tomorrow. Last year this was my goal race; the race that started my blog. This year, it kind of anti-climactic. Yes, I want to run 1:50. But, it's no big deal if I don't. I have run exactly three times since my marathon - one 5K and two easy 5 mile runs. My foot still hurts. I feel like I was in the best running shape in years going into my marathon 2 weeks ago. I have no idea how I'm going to run tomorrow. I've decided to go for it and go out at an 8:20 pace. I very well may crash and burn halfway through... but it won't be the first time! I never have been a very conservative runner.