Preparations!!! and a story about headphones

  So the final day is very near.  Today I will begin to put together as much of my gym bag as I can.  I have been making a list of what needs to go into this thing.  But first let me tell you about my headphones.

Story about the rain soaked headphones.

{skip to next bold type if you fear boredom or non nonrelatio/n}

  I have a pair of motorola over the ear wireless headphones, and I LOVE them.  I love them so much that one day when a down pour hit me I had a little too much faith in these things.  I tucked my phone into my backpack, but kept running with the headphones thinking they were not getting that wet.  Well I was wrong.  As I pulled up to my driveway that day the volume began to dim, and I lost them.  There was no sense in trying to revive them as I knew full well it was my stupidity that got them to where they were.  When my husband got home I told him the story.  He asked if I had tried to start them up again while they were wet, I told him I knew better than that.

These are my precious loves

  Not too long after that he had seen in the Costco coupons that there was a set of wireless headphones. These looked like they would even stand up to the rain!  Precious time went by and I finally made it to Costco and picked up the phones.  I wore them on my 10 mile run Wednesday...one week to what I have been training all this time for.   They worked perfect and had the buttons all placed in the same spot as the other phones, however these were wrap around the head in-ear phones.  So by mile 9.5 I could begin to feel the pressure on my ear, and the pain of them having been wrapped around my head for an hour and 35 minutes.

These will do the trick

  The next day I tried to put them in my ears to pair them with my iPad (which they are not compatible where as my others were!), and OUCH the pain was so much that I knew I wouldn't be able to wear them for the race.  I know part of it could be my fault, I am going to try at another point to put a smaller pair of those soft ear things over the buds.  So I got online and ordered another pair of my favorite kind (which btw are less expensive than the ones I got at Costco) WELLLLL...Amazon gave me a delivery estimation that was too late!, and there is NO way I was going to pay expedited shipping, not after all I have spent in other areas for this race!  I ordered them, then said a little prayer for them to come in time.  Later that day or the next day I can't remember, I decided to give one last go to the "ruined" headphones.  At first I turned them on, and quickly began to lose hope because the song on my phone was not coming through to my headphones.  Then I remembered that in my sorrow just a few days before that, I had told my phone to "forget this device" :(  So I turned the blue tooth "on" and waited..."enter security code" it said...so far so good.  Then all of a sudden the song was coming through!!!  I tried not to get too excited because I had to test wear them to make sure it wasn't going to short out.  I listened to those for a whole hour!  Yay!!! I am so excited!  I am going to test them on my last run before the race, and never wear them in the rain again.

  

Getting ready, mentally and physically

At this point the race is in 5 days.  I feel that I am ready.  Yesterdays run (only two days after 10 mile) was a struggle.  Even after I ate my candy, even on the downhill back home.  It really made me think twice about he Harvest days run I have planed in my head, but am waiting till after the half before I make my final decision. 

  Yesterday the girls and I went to Goodwill to find a "throwaway" jacket for when I am cold starting the race and need to ditch it in the interim.  It was a red tag day.  I can never find a cute anything in the tag color...but of course on the day that I am looking for something practically repulsive,  everything cute jumps out at me.  I found a jacket that I thought was pretty ugly at first...till I needed it today when I wanted to run in the rain.  That Jacket was nice and light and repelled the rain nicely.  Doesn't it figure.  I may not even need it at the start!  The forecast is 51 degrees F

said jacket (it even has a fold up hood)

  Since I wrote the headphone story, I went on a three mile run.  I wasn't able to test the over the ear headphones because it was raining, so I took the in-ear ones and replaced one of the little plastic spongy thingies.  They worked a lot better, however still not as nice as the originals.

  Todays run started out to be kind of difficult as well, but by the turnaround I was doing much better.  Hopefully tomorrow I can do a little speed work.   HA!  How's that for runners lingo?  You like that?  Speedwork, I have figured out is when you try to make better time!

  I have this master list of what to bring with me to the hotel, and it all has to fit into my gym bag.  Oh and BTW, the host hotel was full, so I made reservations with the hotel up the street.  Come to find out in one of my emails (not sure how I missed it!) that MY hotel is offering a discount too.  So I am hoping they can give me the lower rate, what ever that works out to be.

Here is my list so far;
Sports clothing
Change of street clothes
Deodorant/body spray (plan on hanging around for festivities)
Cell Phone (this should be a given, but I am not sure I will be having my brain with me)
Head Phones
5 hour energy.  I am avoiding coffee so I don't have to visit the port a potty during the race.
Bottled water for the night in the hotel
water back pack
ibuprophin
tums (you never know)

Entertainment dilema

 If you have been following my blog you are aware of my "where to put my phone while I run this" circumstance.  Well last night when I was thinking before I went to sleep I had an idea.  What if I take my whistle lanyard and somehow hung my iPone case from it around my neck? 

 This is my result

It looks like it would bounce around and drive me crazy right?  Well only if I let it.  Today on my 3 mile, I tucked this into my shirt and it barely bounced at all.  And the case is meant to repeal sweat, so my phone should be fully protected!  And if it does become bothersome I can always throw it in my back pack.  

  So slowly but surely I am becoming prepared.  I have a few more questions to answer, like which shuttle to take?, What to eat for breakfast?, and will I even sleep?  I hope I remember everything.