Race Tips & Advice...

Here are some tips and advice that we were given before the race (most of these were told to us several times by several different individuals)...

• Start slow, don't go gung-ho at the beginning, because you'll have nothing left to give at the end. As a joke, a Pasta Party speaker said, "Start out fast, then in the middle pickup speed, and at the end sprint!" Yeah, right...
• Get in the Port-A-Potty lines before the race, then once done, get in line again, since it is inevitable that you will need to go again before the race starts.
  
• Don't eat GU on a stick, it is not an energy gel, it is Vaseline lubricant.
• Bring your own toilet paper, since you never know if there is going to be any in the Port-A-Potties along the route.
• At the watering stations, pinch the edge of your cup to make a spout, so you don't end-up with a sticky Accelerade energy drink down the front of your racing jersey.
  
• At the finish line, don't look at your Garmin or watch... instead, keep your head up, smile for the cameras, and keep moving!
• Pain is weakness leaving the body.
• One more mile.
  

Before starting the long Saturday group runs, our Team Captain Pat would provide us with some "spirit". Below is one I am particularly fond of...

Today is the Very First Day of the Rest of My Life

This is the beginning of a new day.
I can waste it... or use it for good.
But what I do today is important,
because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever,
leaving in it's place something that I have traded for it.
I want it to be gain and not loss, good and not evil, success and not failure,
in order that I not regret the price I have paid for it.
I will give 100% of myself just for today,
for you never fail until you stop trying.
I will be the kind of person I have always wanted to be...
I have been given this day to use as I will.