An introduction to Long Beach

Friday 11th October

Martin and I are well known for not being "morning people" - however a change in time zone makes all the difference and we were on our way out for breakfast at 7.20am. Our intention in opting for an apartment rather than a hotel was that we would be able to ensure we had the right pre marathon nutrition, somewhere comfortable to relax and stay off our feet and also save some money on eating out.  However, we had managed to convince ourselves fairly easily that we deserved a treat on our first day, plus we needed to shop for provisions.....so some Internet research had us strolling the short distance to the excellent Berlin Coffee House for delicious coffee and in my case a vegetarian breakfast croissant which was almost worth flying 11 hours for!

I was already loving Long Beach and the cloudless blue skies and sunshine added to the experience. The morning was spent fairly mundanely in a shopping expedition to Trader Joe's for groceries but even that was more fun than the usual trek around the Dorchester Tesco.



Next on the agenda was the marathon Expo and number pick up. We walked from our apartment to the start - about a mile - and the usual race butterflies began when we saw that preparations were already well underway including an impressive row of porta loos stretching off into the distance in Rainbow Lagoon park! The all important numbers and race t-shirts collected it was time to stroll around the exhibitions and soak up the atmosphere and of course the free samples of the various drinks, energy bars and various concoctions guaranteed to improve performance which were on offer.  I must admit to falling for the clever marketing and buying a very fetching long sleeve Long Beach marathon t-shirt, Martin dithered over the vast array of 50 dollar running shoes but was more restrained than me.

With the very impressive expo thoroughly "done" the next stop was to check out the very long beach! The weather was perfect, a cooling breeze coming off the ocean and endless sand stretching east, mostly completely deserted.  It was a slightly strange feeling that after all the planning, training and anticipation, we were finally here and only a short time remained before we would find ourselves on the start line.

Martin, as always, is positive and confident that we will achieve our running goals. I am not so sure, I feel horribly under trained and fairly certain that I am not going to be able to sustain the planned pace. Do I always feel this unfit and tired just before a big race? I keep trying to convince myself that I do......I just want to get to the start, get running and see what happens.  Even having arrived in lovely sunny California I'm still marking time until Sunday morning at 6am!