The Day draws Nigh

Less than 48 hours before the RUN! Very excited. It strange that our very first marathon must be this monstrosity of an event. 25,000 people running....there's a white paper here somewhere.

If you have nothing else to do on Saturday, you can follow us if you go to this url.... www.rnrseattle.com and you can watch us live (though I'm not sure that description will fit )

Conversely, for the digerati/netizens amongst us, I've decided to take my cell phone and attempt to twitter during the race. You can follow me by going to

http://twitter.com/joefec

With the hoopla, there is a certain degree of fear. I don't like failing (or falling for that matter), especially in front crowds, and 25,000 people is a big crowd. I guess the advantages of a mega event like this is that there are probably going to be several ambulances/medical facilities around just in case my legs fall off or my feet explode. I take this advice on fear from a few respected mentors.....

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead." - Einstein

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” - Yoda

In closing, for those who don't get the Seattle Times, they've been doing a great job covering the event. They had some great stats on what it takes to orchestrate this thing:

Marathon preparations

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PUT ON A MARATHON? When you've got 25,000 runners, 46 bands and 25 cheer teams, a whole lot.

710,000 drinking cups

40,000 pounds of ice

21,000 bananas

18,000 bagels (no lox? )

12,000 oranges

600 portable toilets (whew!)

5,500 Band-Aids

3,675 boxes of gauze

100 1-pound jars of Vaseline (eeewwww!)

2,785 tongue depressors ( ? really? )

Source: The Competitor Group

That's some list! I'd rather run this thing than plan it, that's for sure.

Finally, I'd like to briefly thank everyone who contributed to the LLS. Julie and I made and passed our goal of $1800 to fight this dreaded disease. Thank you!

Here's my list of things to do for this micro-blog

• I'll get a final tally of the funds
  
• An after action report on my physical condition after the run (with pics!)
  
• And a close out of this microblog with information on Autumn, the little girl we're running for

See you on Twitter or on TV when I win this race! :)

- Joe