Dateline:Vermont

Dear Diary

It's race day.

Well, it's not race day, not yet. Today I picked up my "packet": my shirt, bib (#431), two meal tickets and some safety pins. Then I listened to a fairly entertaining speech "welcome to the Vermont 100!" about how to approach a horse from behind in the dead of night. My 100k, as it turns out, goes all night. And it goes on as the same time as an endurance horse race. Sweet Baboo thinks that's cool. I'm trying to put the vision of steaming piles of horse manure out of my head.

Now it's 10:30 and I can't sleep.

Sweet Baboo's hundred mile race will be starting at 4 am, so we'll be up at 1 am and leaving the hotel by 3. After he leaves I have five hours to nap in the car until my race starts at 9 am.

For some reason I didn't pay much attention to this race. My mind has been full of other things this year. Two weeks ago I realized it started at--"wait, 9 am? That means I'll be running into the night!" Panicked. Afraid.

"Yup!' said Mr. Cheerful. "in fact, all night!"

Shit. Horse shit, to be precise.

"I'm terrified of this race, I confessed to Baboo as we were packing for our trip to Vermont. It's a 20 hour time limit, and some really crazy hills, all the way through.

"Try to be positive," he warned. "Don't take that onto the course with you."

Whatever.

They weighed me. I've never been weighed for a run before. And took my blood pressure. And warned me that I cannot lose more than 10 lbs during the race. I laughed, the laugh of a frightend, insane woman, and drank some more gatorade. Then the speech about the trails, no headphones allowed, because of the horses. We need to be able to hear them coming. I'm pretty sure that well into the race, at night, nobody on a horse will be behind me, but whatever. It's a rule, I'll follow it. Alone at night, in the dark New England woods, I'll talk to myself. And hope that no voices talk back.

I dropped off my 3 drop bags, each with a new Ensure clear (peach-flavored), two Larabars, fresh socks, and other assorted items. The 50-mile bag has head lamp and batteries in it. It didn't occur to me I might need a pacer, so I didn't arrange one.

There's no athlete tracking.

So, well, *Deep breath* hopefully, I'll see you on the other side of the finish line.

...

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