murphy's law

most of my previous marathon's were so nicely planned out and covered by others (my parents or jess's, gotta love "second parents") so for these most recent two (atlanta, disney) i haven't put much thought into the actual logistics of getting into town, to the expo, etc.

for atlanta, we got stuck in traffic for 4 hours and barely made it to the expo on time. the next morning i had to walk/jog 2 miles to the start line (and 2 miles back to the car) because i didn't check online to see that you could actually park near the start/finish. two miles isn't a lot most days, but pre-/post- marathon.... it can be quite miserable.

you'd think i might be semi-organized about planning a marathon trip by now (this is #6), but i'm still not.

after my experiences today, here are some tips you might want to consider when traveling to a marathon (or really, traveling period):

1. check what airport you are actually flying into.
2. arrange transportation to your hotel from the airport you are actually flying into.
3. in the event you have to rent a car at the last minute, get directions to your destination.
4. don't ever travel without at least a little bit of cash. there will probably be a toll road.

number 1 is key. how surprised we were when we landed at not-orlando-airport, found zero hotel shuttles, discovered that the cab fare would be $120, decided to rent a car instead, discovered that the road we had to get on was a toll road, had no cash so turned around on the one-way on-ramp to find a gas station and get some cash... i hate feeling like nothing is going right and was stressing out a good bit - i just wanted everything to go smoothly and easily!

we made it to the expo in decent time, met up with jess and her parents, picked up my race bibs and chips and shirts, and browsed through the vendors a bit. cigna was there with these face-screening machines that showed you if your skin was oily (showed up orange) and if there was any sun-damage. j and jess both had "signs of sun-damage" but i was told i have great skin. hah! riiight. i'm sure my dermatologist would agree. it was still neat though.

well i'm off to nap so i can rise bright and early at 2:XX. can't say i'm diggin' the 5:50am start and all the "you must be on the shuttle by 4am" business.