Indy was Monumental: Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

My briefer recap of the CNO Indianapolis Monumental Marathon can be found here.  This post begins my obsessively detailed series, and covers the end of my taper and the beginning of race weekend.

My taper for Indy was like no other; I never experienced taper crazies!  I still don't know how this happened or what the implications are, but my taper passed quickly and I felt pretty normal throughout it.  Race week I was ready to fast forward to race day, knowing I had nothing more to gain but potentially something to lose (so many sick people around!), but other than that and having two days off work it was just a normal week.

I also never got nervous or anxious.  I never get significant pre-race nerves, but before attempting PRs I've typically had some anxiety or at least uncertainty.  I felt more prepared than I'd ever been, and confident.  I felt that it wasn't a matter of if I was going to break 2:45:00, it was a matter of by how much.  This seems arrogant when I write it, but the mental side of marathoning is huge, and I was 100% there - perhaps too much, considering I didn't actually do it!

I took the 7 hour car ride to Indianapolis on Thursday with my husband and father.  I laid around in the backseat reading, napping, hydrating, and snacking, and the trip went by quickly.  We checked into a hotel near the Indianapolis airport for Thursday night, and I did some yoga and hunkered down in the hotel room while the men went out for BBQ.  I packed a cooler with every meal and a large snack bag with every single morsel of food I was going to eat before the race - I was taking no chances!

Friday morning we set no alarms, and I managed to sleep until almost 7:00 a.m.  I then laid around until the windchill climbed over 15 degrees and went for my shake out run.  That run eased my concern about the marathon being too cold; I'd forgotten how much warmer any given winter temperature is when the sun is up vs. in pitch darkness!  I ran an easy 3 miler plus some strides and drills, did some stretching and foam rolling, then laid around until we had to check out of the hotel at noon.  I think I was lazier in the 48 hours pre-race than I'd been in the 4 months before the event combined!

Post-final shake out

We then drove to our Friday night hotel, which was the downtown Hilton just off of the race start.  I offered to do anything fun that my husband and dad wanted to do, but after navigating downtown traffic Jon just wanted to park the car and not deal with it, and it was awfully cold to walk anywhere, so we instead sat in our hotel lobby until check in.  I worked on my work laptop (taking a 2 day vacation is never easy!), and the guys walked across the street and got a pizza.  When they returned our room was ready so we all went up to the 12th floor and ate lunch.  Then it was more lazying around until walking to the race expo around 4:30, for a short tour of the expo prior to the elite meeting at 5:00.

Expos exhaust me, so I just did a quick loop around looking for highlights and freebies.  I nabbed some Clif bars and took a photo of Deana Kastor (the line to meet her was too long!), and we posed for some photo-ops.  I never buy any race merchandise at the expo because I know I will only want it if I have a good race!  This post details the elite meeting.

Coach Dad

My super supportive hubby

Free food!

After the meeting we walked back to our hotel, getting only slightly lost on the way (thank God for the sky-walk so we were able to stay indoors!).  Then we continued our hotel room laziness and I cooked a massive sweet potato in our crappy hotel microwave, which took about 30 minutes - on the plus side, I did a hip opening yoga routine while it was baking.  After dinner it was more laying around, reading, and sleeping!  This was pretty much the most uneventful trip of my life, but I wanted to save every ounce of energy I had for 26.2 on November 9.

I never felt anything but excited, composed, and ready.  I knew I'd done everything I could, and I'd loved every second of the preparation.  I went to sleep that night knowing my life would change the following day in one way or another.

Before bed excitement

My detailed recaps continue here.