I totally relied on Amy to get me from the hotel to the bus. I can not tell you where my head was, but it wasn't spending any time figuring out which direction we needed to walk once we got up out of the subway. There were 2 buses around the Diesel store, which was the landmark we were told to look for.
I got on the bus and there were no familiar faces to me, but Amy asked the driver if it was the right bus and he confirmed it was The Alzheimer's bus.
The other team members chatted with each other and I did nothing to include myself. I still can't tell you where my head was. I didn't feel nervous and I just saying "It's today."
Coach Brian came on and checked names off and by 6:00AM, we were all there - how cool is that? No one was late.
Someone brought bananas and offered them to all of the runners. Amy made sure I had a bagel and a banana in my bag, so I was set. I was trying to figure out when I should eat them, based on my 10:40 start. I started nibbling on the bagel.
The bus took off. I had no clue what direction we were going nor did I recognize anything to say if we were close the the Verrazano or not. Then...... there is was. As we inched along, I could see the Runner's Village and I could see runners walking from their buses toward the village. It took a bit for our driver to get the okay to park and let us off.
This was it! We were at the village.
I got off and was still 'by myself'. Surprisingly, I did nothing to change that. I was watching myself be shy and not bold and knowing I was not being bold and knowing I was not doing anything about that. Then, my first angel of the day appeared. The last person to come on the bus turned to me and asked "Are you Lynn?" I said "I am." She said she was Pat. I did not recognize her with a hat on. I had seen her photo once, I think. Pat is one of the few team members who also had a blog. I followed her training journey and I know she followed mine, as she commented a few times.
I then had a buddy to be with in the village. Hooray!
A few other team members joined Pat and me and we found a place to sit. I followed the advice and brought a black garbage bag to sit on. Our group moved a few times, trying to find a place that was not so windy and cold. We eventually found a larger group of R2R people.
I was prepared for the cold. I relied on Kevin in planning my "before we start the marathon' clothing. I had my running gear on and added sweatpants, a sweatshirt, a micro fleece ear cover, gloves and a winter jacket. The deal is that you get to leave your outer clothing in you starting corral and it all gets donated to the homeless. If you want to keep some of your clothing, you put it in your UPS bag and turn it in before 9:30, when the UPS trucks close.
I decided that I didn't need 3 winter jackets, especially since I leave for Florida in mid November and return in April. I decided to give away the jacket that Alex told me makes me look like the Michelin man.
It was so windy, it was cold and it was damp. Eventually a group of us decided to head over to the food and beverage place in the village. They gave away Poland Spring water bottles (the 8 oz ones), bagels, PowerBars and coffee. I took another bagel, 4 bottles of water and 4 PowerBars. I don't know what I thought I was going to do with the PowerBars, as I had 4 already cut up on the FuelBelt.
By then, I was introduced to Liam, a team member who was very cool. He had dyed his hair purple, what with that being the R2R color. We were both in the 3rd wave and orange. Pat was in the 3rd wave, but not orange.
Liam and I then decided it was time to get rid of our UPS bags and start heading to the orange corral. We had to get our bags to the truck before 9:30 and pee one last time and be at our corral at 10:20.
The lines to the portajohns were beyond long. I saw some advice somewhere that said to get on line for the portajohn and then after peeing, get on line again. That is not bad advice.
Liam led me in the right direction and we found the correct UPS truck - they are based on your bib number, I gave them the stuff that I wanted at the end of the race and was one step closer to starting my marathon.
Then, we ran into Addie. Addie and I had e-mailed back and forth just before the marathon because we were in the same wave and we were both orange. We had similar concerns, as we were both starting the race injured.
Then we ran into more R2R peeps, I applied my Body Glide for the last time. I had chafed in a few areas during my long runs and smeared the stuff on to prevent chafing during the marathon. I shared it with my team members and then dumped it.
Our corral opened. I stripped off my outer gear and left it for the homeless. I kept my gloves on.
At about 10:30, we started inching to the starting line on the bridge.
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