I arrived in Baltimore on Thursday afternoon and, for the first time in awhile, there were friendly faces waiting for me at the airport (I don’t care who you are - getting picked up by friends is way better than driving yourself from the airport).  It was my first trip to Baltimore, so my generous hostess, Katie, and her dad, Mike, pointed out landmarks on the way to the race expo.  We parked and headed into the building, and almost immediately I saw another familiar face, Alison Cuomo (I mean, seriously, what are the odds?), who was running the half marathon.  After exchanging surprised looks and a few pleasantries, Katie, “Dad,” and I headed upstairs to retrieve our race packets, bibs, and shirts (the race shirt was an Under Armour Women’s Cut in the size I requested - an awesome first!)  After the expo, we headed to Pizza Hut for some dinner and I met Tillie the Labradoodle, who would become my friend and Daisy surrogate over the next few days.

On Friday, we took it easy.  Katie fixed pancakes (Yum!) for breakfast and we headed out to Holabird Sports and Target.  I got some great deals on running tops at Holabird, but Katie scored the deal of the day - multiple Champion tanks for $2.48 at Target!!  Lunch was turkey sandwiches and for dinner we headed to Carabbas for pasta.  I had the Mezzaluna (half moon ravioli stuffed with chicken, ricotta, and spinach in a tomato cream sauce) and enjoyed every mouthful.  Katie and I went back to her house and laid out our things (running skirt, top, shoes/socks, Garmin GPS, bib, hat, etc.)  My outfit consisted of my old standby of a pink skirt and blue top.  I stuffed my newly acquired waistpack with my camera and six packages of Sharkies, hoping I would not need that many, but wanting to be prepared.  We went to bed at a reasonable time and while I didn’t sleep well, I did sleep better than expected.

We got up early (but thankfully not as early as you have to get up for the Disney races!) and I choked down a banana and some peanut butter on whole wheat bread (Katie’s typical pre-race breakfast varies only slightly from mine - she had a peanut butter and banana sandwich), then we headed to Dad Riley’s to meet up with him and some of his friends who were running the 5K.  Our little caravan headed downtown for the race.  We were able to use a real restroom at the Bank of America building, courtesy of Dad, although the men in our group stumbled onto a guard in their restroom who appeared to be napping on the job.

It didn’t take long for us to find Phyllis and a few of the crew from DisneyRunning.com.  We were easy to spot because most of us were wearing either an orange hat or an orange shirt with the Disney Running logo.  Unfortunately, most of the DR crew were running the half and not the full marathon, so a few folks didn’t arrive in time for me to visit with them before I headed to the start.  Every single person in my group of race-day friends was someone I met because of the Internet - all but one (Katie) because of Robert at DisneyRunning.com.  What a small world we live in now!

At 7:40, Phyllis and I made our way over to our pace group’s start location.  We met our fearless leaders, Greg, Jenn, and Tim, and took a few pictures before the start.  Our leaders had nicknamed our group the “Pirates” and one runner, who was the first leg of a marathon relay team, had dressed the part, wearing an eyepatch and carrying a sword.  We were given final instructions and told of the game plan, which was that we would maintain a 12:00/mile pace by running for 11 minutes and walking for one minute in every mile, roughly coinciding with the water stops and mile markers.  I had trained by walking for one minute every two miles and with a slightly faster pace, so I was happy with that plan, as my longest run in training was only 18 miles (i.e., just over two-thirds of the total marathon distance).  Jenn wrote our names on our arms with a Sharpie (so that people would cheer for us by name, she explained) and then Phyllis and I requested that she add a Jolly Roger to match the one she had on her arm.  The marathon began with the singing of the national anthem (somewhat audible from the back of the pack) and an explosion of confetti and we were off!

Now really...you didn’t think I’d do the race report in the first post, did you?