Karen writes: 3am Marathon morning (the capital letter and exclamation mark version)

We arrived in Perth on Friday evening after a delayed but uneventful flight from Auckland.   Flying sure has changed, I got all excited to have my own screen in the back of the chair in front, with movies (nah…nothing I wanted to watch there), television programme reruns (only fools and horses was a trip through history), and games.  I did think I had destroyed the planes computer system when I was trying to have a game of solitaire, the black screen of death complete with rolling error messages had me looking furtively round to check if anyone had seen what I had done.  The cabin staff kindly reset it for me, just the games, not the planes navigation computer thankfully.

Saturday was time for registering for the marathon at the Perth convention centre, the city seemed surprisingly quiet but that may have had something to do with the fact that our bodies were still operating on Auckland time which was 4 hours earlier than the local time.    Then we had to find FOOD, being absolutely famished (as usual), and nothing seemed to be open except the ubiquitous Mcdonalds, but we kept walking looking for eggs Benedict and hot chocolate, which was eventually found down an alley in a strange little scruffy place run by slightly scary youth channelling the 1960’s. 

We then walked around a bit more, finally finding a supermarket hidden down another long alleyway, and lugged the essentials (bananas, chocolate), the necessaries (carbohydrates, high GI), the preferred (everything else).  There was also my list of ‘forgots’, things like sunscreen.   I also forgot my rain jacket, I hope I dont need it.

Skip this paragraph anyone who has warned about getting plenty of rest before a big event, we walked for nearly THREE hours.   Not planned, but I put this in the category of ‘live and learn’, being in a strange city you need things and with a very long day spanning two timezones, the walk just happened.   I wanted to follow that path to see where it went, or go over that motorway bridge, or there must be another food shop somewhere...

Cant resist bridges, going over or under them

So now it is about 3am, its dark.   Yesterday first thing was bitterly cold but I havent put my nose outside to find out what today is like.  I have a hot drink in front of me, weetbix with milk is on the menu, then have to decide finally (again) what clothes to wear.  I made the mistake of bringing 2 pairs of socks, one pair I have already run a marathon in with no ill effects so that pair is ‘known’, and one pair which I have run a few 20km’s in and they felt really nice, but they are ‘unknown’.   Hmmm…decisions decisions.  Next what gels to take, they have Gu on the course, I have trained with other varieties but used the solid Gu…do I take the risk and use theirs and enjoy the luxury of carrying less weight or stick to the tried and true?       Do I want 3 weetbix or should I have 4?   Yes, this is getting ridiculous, call it 'pre-race idiocy'.   

Oh well, next time you hear from us we will know whether or not we got the answers to the TERRIBLY IMPORTANT early morning questions right.   Yayyyyyyyy we are offfffffff!