Friday, March 25, 2011

Race motivation

It's the first weekend in more than 3 months that I don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn to run double digit miles! Guess what I'm doing to celebrate?

Waking up even earlier  to volunteer at the National Marathon!

I'm a virgin race volunteer, which I feel super guilty about, because I know how crucial wonderful volunteers are to a race and it's well past the time where I should start giving back what so many others do for me.

Plus I'm still on my ridiculous runner's high but on strict orders to rest and recover, so the next best thing is channeling all my excitement into cheering on other runners!

That's not the only reason though. Throughout my training for both marathons I've been obsessed with my running buddies and can't stop talking about how much better they make training. Two of them are running tomorrow.

It's Jackie's first marathon and I am SO excited for her.
  <------------Jackie
Jill ran Baltimore with me.
  <-------------Jill
I can't wait to motivate the crap out of both of them.
We are course marshalls, so we tell people where to go and cheer our asses off. We were made to be awesome at this job. Also we are near the halfway point so if anyone there DIDN'T intend to hear me singing Living on a Prayer 47 million times, they are in for a surprise.

In my experience, great spectators can completely change the course of a race (I don't know how I would have gotten through Baltimore without my family cheering me on, Shamrock without Nicole and Gram in spirit, or any race without Eric!) so I really want to help my friends and the other 14,998 strangers by doing anything I can to motivate them!


So how did I celebrate my first Friday night not in training in 3 months? Going to happy hour and getting wild? NOPE, not this girl. Since we'll be busy screaming and cheering all day tomorrow, and have an even busier day Sunday, I tried to pretend today was Sunday and worked on my Sunday to do list on things like putting away the laundry (see last night's quote), grocery shopping, oh wait that's it. Didn't get to the rest of the stuff. Living in filth is fine, right? Seriously I was getting stuff ready for tomorrow, making my sign, etc and a pretty sign for the marathoners is more important than a clean house.. We are waking up at about 4:30 am, leaving by 5, so I was planning to take a tylenol PM at 7:30. But when I was cooking dinner, I decided on a more natural version.



It'll do the trick! I need to get my rest for hours of SCREAMING tomorrow! Did I mention the forecast doesn't currently climb above freezing until 11am? At least it's not supposed to snow, like it is on Sunday!

What's the best motivational quote you can think of that I can yell to the runners? 
I need to step it up from "you look great!".

4 comments:

  1. A glass of wine will knock me out, too! Good choice! : )

    I always end up yelling the "woohooo!!! Keep it up! You're doing great!!!". So original, right?

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  2. Sounds like fun!! I feel like you don't hear anything other than general enthusiasm when you're running anyway, so maybe just yell "wooo!!" Kidding, but only kind of.

    ps i definitely want your recipes! joggingwithfiction@gmail.com

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  3. gosh thats so thoughtful, I never considered volunteering for a race. I'm a bad girl.

    What would I like to hear...maybe "you're a superhero!" or something lighthearted but also something that pumps them up and makes them feel strong

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  4. I've never volunteered at a race either! I never really even considered it, but it does sound like a good idea :)

    Just don't shout "You're almost done, you're on the homestretch!" at mile 18. I almost punched a fool for saying that during my race :)

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.