A Week From Today…

I WILL BE A MARATHONER!!! AAAHHH!

I can’t believe it is finally here! We leave in 4 days for Disney, and I feel so unprepared/excited/anxious/nervous all at once! To top off my nerves, I just found out the Saints playoff game is Saturday night, the night before the race. Yup! Not only did I freak out and hurry and change my 5:30 dining reservations so I won’t miss the name, but now I know I won’t get much sleep the night before the race!

A few housekeeping items today. If you would like to follow my progress during the race, you can opt to get FREE texts or emails by going HERE. It’s easy to sign up! enter in my full name, HEATHER MONTGOMERY and you can follow me!

You can also follow me on twitter or join either of my facebook fan pages on my RIGHT toolbar. I will be tweeting and posting pictures on FB and twitter during the trip, after the race, before the race, etc. So that is a good way to keep up with me over the course of my trip!

Also, don’t forget, I am a travel agent! I booked mainly Disney and Universal, but I do other things and cruises, too so just ask! My services are free to you! Contact me at heather@travelwiththemagic.com for a free no obligation quote.

and now, for a couple of flashback pictures from last year’s race!

QOTD: Do you have any race goals for the year? Run a 5k? Get a new PR?

 

Packing for a Destination Race

Afternoon, I hope today has been pleasant! I have been a busy bee this morning! One of the things I have been working on is packing for my marathon trip. that’s right folks, I leave a week from TODAY! Very excited but very nervous as well!

Anyway, I am petrified I am going to do something stupid like forget to pack running socks or something so I decided to make a packing list and pack all my race day gear in a separate bag so it’s all right there and ready to go!

So, behold…THE LIST!

-Running shoes (MOST IMPORTANT!)

-running socks/compression socks

-running skirt(s)

-running tights

-long sleeved shirt

-short sleeved shirt

-tank top

-running outerwear

-throw away outerwear

-gloves

-hat

-sunglasses

-body glide

-athletic tape

-IT band strap

-Garmin/charger

-camera/charger

-multiple GU’s

-hot hands

-hair ties and clips

-sunscreen

-sunglasses

-sports bra

-tissue

-chap stick

-needed medications

-band aids

-extra safety pins

-spibelt

-yurbuds (I probably won’t use)

-iPhone/pod/charger

-banana and breakfast bars

-arm band/holder for iPod/iPhone (I probably won’t use)

Is that all? I am probably leaving out something totally obvious but these are the things I have packed so far JUST for the actual race. WOAH that’s a lot of stuff when you think about it. I also will be packing things like other running shoes to walk around in after and before, foam roller, etc. etc. But I think this about covers the necessities!  Bobby and I have the luxury of driving so we can take as much crap in my monster SUV as we please. This is a MAJOR plus to us as a reason to drive!

QOTD: Did I leave anything off the list?

 

Jazz Half Marathon Recap Part 1

 

    Happy Halloween! I hope everyone is having a good day. it’s beautiful here in South Louisiana. I slept so awful last night after the race. I was so achy and restless, and my knee was killing me, and today I have been hobbling around and icing my leg.

So yesterday was the Jazz half marathon. I didn’t take many pictures because I didn’t have my little point and shoot for the race, but I have a couple friends who took pictures so I am waiting to get some from them. So, I thought I would break this into two parts and do everything leading up to the race morning in this post and then do another post of the actual race next time, or when I get pictures.

Friday, October 29, I waited at my parent’s for Bobby to drive in from work, I hadn’t seen him since Sunday so I was excited and also anxious to get downtown. We loaded up the car and were off by 6:00. We drove across Lake Ponchatrain (my parents house is only about 45 minutes from downtown New Orleans) and we got to see a beautiful sunset!

I spy the city!

Hello, superdome!

I think it’s funny how it kind of looks like a UFO in this next picture.

This weekend is also Voodoo fest in the french quarter so it was pretty crowded and a little nuts with people in weird costumes.

We got to the hotel, and our race packets were supposed to be there. As some of you know, there was a little mix up with getting our packets to the hotel and I ended up getting chewed out by the race director, and then he told me he would get us our packets to the hotel (this was TUESDAY night I talked to him) I had a bad feeling they wouldn’t be there, and they weren’t. Bobby had to call him (he had already called him back for me WEDNESDAY to remind him) and he said “oh ya, I will get them to you sometime tonight.” Huh? Sometime tonight? it was already after 7 and I wasn’t planning on staying up late! I was so frustrated that it didn’t process when the check in lady told us we would be staying in a king suite. What? I had booked a regular king room, but apparently they put us in a king suite. Cool!

 

We were so hungry, so our plan was to walk across the street to the Riverwalk and get something from the food court.

We walk in…and there is no one there and all the restaurants are closing up. huh? It’s 7:25 on a Friday night and they close the mall and food court at SEVEN! Very, very odd if you ask me. We were starving and so we randomly started walking down the streets looking for somewhere to eat. We stumbled across this little place, I was definitely in the mood for pizza!

Pie, how cute!

We were boring and got a large pepperoni and waters. It was SO GOOD!

Look at the cute napkins!

We left full and happy and went back to the room. It was almost 9, and still no packet. I left my cell number with the lady at the desk and asked if she would call me when they came. We went upstairs and got our things ready for tomorrow and hung out for a few minutes. Around 9:15, they finally called and had our packets. Praise the Lord! I was starting to get worried they wouldn’t come.

We went through everything and put our numbers on our shirts and our timing chips on our shoes. One things I was most excited about, gender specific race shirts!

I ordered a small and it fit perfectly!

My stuff ready to go!

We went to sleep about 9:45 with a 5:20 alarm set for the 7:00 am race!

 

I will post the rest in another post when I hopefully have more pictures to post!