Cav's Place

On May 10, after waking up in the afternoon, I finally finished The Dark Defiles, then tried to sleep some more, but despite staying in bed until a few minutes before 5:30 PM and being in that state that’s in between asleep and awake for most of those more than two hours, I really doubt that I caught any more actual sleep, or if I did then it couldn’t have been for more than mere seconds. Either way, later I had a lunch that probably wasn’t as big as in previous years, wrote the quick review, and at 10:50 PM I started working on dinner, also making the tea for the morning during that time. I ate dinner between 12:50 AM and 1:30 AM, with peanut butter on all of the bread but without beets in the salad, since I hadn’t found discounted ones and hadn’t bothered to buy any at full price. And during that time I also saw that no visits had been recorded on May 10. Either way, I then went to the toilet one more time and then got everything ready for the morning, also taking one of those pills against gas. I had initially meant to get in bed at 3:30 AM and it was close to that time when everything else was done, and I had said that if I won’t have time then I won’t shave, but in the end I decided to do that as well, after removing that part of the brush that was coming off, since I hadn’t gotten around to try to glue it back after finally finding that glue that I knew we still had. But at least I shaved really quickly, if admittedly not too well… And then I realized that I couldn’t remember what emergency contact number I had written on the back of the bib, and when I checked I saw that I had written mine instead of dad’s. But at least I could correct that without taking the bib off the t-shirt, and I finally got in bed at 3:55 AM.
Despite the earlier hour and the various noises coming from the upstairs neighbor, I managed to fall asleep after a while, but a couple of minutes before 5 AM I was awake again and rather needed to pee, so I did that and then managed to get back to sleep quickly. And when I woke up again I saw that it was 6:11 AM, and with the alarm being set to ring at 6:15 AM, I just turned it off and got up, then ate an imported bio (organic) apple, mixed one of those cheap yogurts, since I hadn’t bothered to buy anything better, with the cereals, raisins in dark chocolate and baked almonds with Himalayan salt which I had already placed in the bowl, and ate that as well, took all of the supplements, except the second pills of the iron, which I took with me, and that one for joints, which I left for later, basically wasted some time on the toilet, which I didn’t consider much of a problem after having gone after dinner, put a flimsy bag and the napkins, garlic, liquid magnesium, Smecta Go and expired bar and gel in the pocket of my tights, also ate two of those wheat things, with bio (organic) honey both between and on them, took a regular Smecta with some of the tea and one more of those pills against gas, and left just before 8 AM, wearing the full running gear and one armband, dad driving me to the metro station and giving me his metro card. The temperature was supposed to be about 12°C at 9 AM, which was the start time of the half marathon, and about 15°C at 11 AM.
I realized in the car that I still had a bag in the jacket’s pocket and meant to leave it with dad, but I forgot to do so and that ended up being a great thing later. Either way, I then took the metro, got off at Izvor, and reached Constitution Square just before 8:30 AM, having a quick look around the area but not seeing anything being given away that I could get, so after just doing a few stretching moves on my own, it wasn’t even 8:40 AM when I stuffed the jacket and phone in the bag and went to drop it off at the wardrobe, the line moving quickly and the volunteer seeing that I had pinned a piece of paper with my number on the bag, giving me a thumbs up and passing it on right away, without having to write the number on one of those labels that they were sticking to the straps. And then, after taking the last iron pill, I went to the toilets and picked what looked to be one of the shorter lines… Only for someone to spend a long time in the toilet that it was for, so the wait ended up being longer than it’d have been if I’d have picked pretty much any other line and making me have to rush to the starting area… And on the way I also saw that hardly anyone was waiting at the toilets that were closer to it, though the start time was approaching and I obviously can’t know how it’d have been if I’d have gone straight there.
Though the assigned sector still wasn’t printed on the bibs, the starting area was split into sectors and I had initially decided to take my correct place, in the one for times between 1:45:00 and 1:59:59, knowing that I was in no shape to get below 1:45. But I also knew that I needed every help I could get to even stay under 1:50 and a good start time might make all the difference, so when I actually got there I changed my mind and kept going, walking to the entrance to the sector meant for times between 1:20:00 and 1:44:59. And that’s actually the first time I saw such a sector, so far the sector for times below 1:45 coming right after the small one for the elite athletes, so it can still be said that I didn’t push my way into the first sector that amateurs can access… And I actually didn’t push my way into that sector either before the start, since a number of people were crowded at the entrance, with no room to actually enter, so I rushed to eat that expired energy bar while standing among them, just managing to finish it before the start, though I then held on to the wrapping for quite some time.

I’d normally consider stopping here, using a post to write only about what happened until the start, as a complete waste of a personal “slot”, but this time it’s different, because this post is more of a way to announce that, earlier this evening, close to eight months after the fact, almost five after posting what was initially just a placeholder, and four after making the previous additions, I finally, finally finished the second post about last year’s marathon, getting to the point when I crossed the finish line. Of course, after so long and with so few notes to go on, the result is relatively poor in specific details, and that’s even more frustrating when that’s my most important run and likely to be the best performance I’ll ever achieve in any “official” way. But at least it’s finally there, in some form, and if I’ll remember anything else or somehow find that I wrote or said something back then that I somehow failed to find again so far, I can always make more edits.