Perfect To A "T"

October 12th: 7am wakeup. Immediately to the bathroom. Washed some dishes and decided on what I wanted to have for breakfast. I didn't have much so I swung by Da Choppa to pick up a few things. I decided on a couple blueberry bagels, instant oatmeal (mostly for race day and emergency quick breakfasts), eggs, and orange juice. I wanted a quality breakfast the day before the race.

Back to the apartment to make breakfast and finish up packing everything into one big duffle bag. I toasted up a blueberry bagel and made a onion/green pepper omelette. Mmm. Perfect breakfast. I purchased a cassette tape adapter for my iPod off Amazon, but it wasn't working. I attempted to take it apart and fix it. After multiple trips to the car and unscrewing the itty bitty screws off the tape, it was a complete failure. Oh well. Radio will have to do.

Out the door at 10:30am to make the trip down to Hartford, CT. Smooth sailing with minimal traffic. GPS directions to the XL Center for the Expo. We made the mistake of going to the XL Center "Business Branch." The front desk directed us the correct way to the Expo. It was only a couple blocks away so we walked and kept the car in the parking garage.

The Expo was wicked sweet and we checked out everything. We hit up the merchandise section first thing to find the sweet pullovers. There were only women's XL for the full marathon. Luckily, we are skinny male runners so they fit perfectly. Boom! We found a couple clearance high visibility jackets (converted into vests by zipping off the sleeves). We proceeded to the checkout table and the total came to $102 bucks. Whoa! The clearance jackets were actually $70 bucks, not $10. Whoops. No dice. We just went with the pullovers. Saw Erica Jesseman at a table and conversed with her for a while. Off to check out the rest of the vendors. Got a "massage" on my right achilles with these metal pieces that looked like knifes. Felt amazing. It was called the Graston Technique. Picked up a pair of throw away maroon gloves for race day. Walked back to the parking garage and used a crosswalk with a countdown of 60+. WTF?! It was maybe 10 meters and not a busy side road. Whatever.

Off to check into the hotel on Morgan Street (1.3 miles from the starting line) at the Ramada Plaza. No problems with check-in or parking or anything. Up to the room to relax and get ready for a shakeout. Out for 2 miles (14+) and we realized we should have ran to the start, but it was all good. Almost ran into the ghetto of Hartford, but we made it back okay.

Back to stretch, shower, and change up for some dinner. Organized all of the running gear and accessories for a photo shoot and to make sure everything was accounted for. Downstairs for a roommate date at the nice fancy restaurant. We splurged and ordered two appetizers. Mozzarella and tomato. Chips and guacamole dip. Main course was Tuscany chicken sandwich with pesto mayo, sauteed onions, provolone, and tomato. I made sure we held off on dessert to continue all the good karma. Everything is fuel for the next day. Chocolate lava cake had to wait.

Back up the room to just relax and watch some television. Bed by 10ish.

2 miles on the day with some light walking and lots eating/snacking/hydrating.