Excitements and Alarms

At work, we've been interviewing candidates for next year.  We have a super-cool new process for interviewing where we get to see a bunch of people all in one day.  After school, the candidates rotate around to small groups of us faculty members and we ask them various questions.  It's great to have instant comparison between candidates.  After they leave, we sit as a faculty and for three minutes for each candidate, we get to: say why we'd be excited to work with that person and state anything we are nervous about or that makes us think twice.

I only have a little bit of time before I want to get to sleep, and I'll report more once the marathon is over, but I wanted to post some excitements and alarms of the trip so far:

Why I am Excited:

My sister is here!  Woo hoo!

I met Mary Decker Slaney (loved her as an athlete...not so much as a sportswoman), Dathan Ritzenhein (I told him to tell Nike to get arm warmers for sale...he said you can get some through Nikepro.com...they are not the ones he wears though), and Brad Hudson (this was my highlight...it's his book that has coached me through my training.  I got to chat with him about what I liked about his program.  He asked about my goals and told me he'd check the results.  He was a cool guy).

Oregon is so, so pretty.  And green!

Cozmic Pizza...I had some trouble, as it's moved since 2002 when I was last there, but it's still yummy.

Pre's Sister...she makes necklaces that maybe you saw in Running Times.  She was just really nice at the Expo.

Starbucks--did not charge me for the hot water I asked for, even though I took it in one of their cups.  That's so nice.

The Excelsior Inn...so far, this B&B is great.  Really cute, welcoming, and way more charmig than than the Hilton from the 70's where the Expo is.

What Worries/Worried Me:

Two hours of traffic leaving the Bay Area...that meant 8 hours in the car on Friday, instead of 6.

Driving in the dark while it's raining...and through mountains...where the signs warned of deer, bears, and bike.  Oh my!

Rain tomorrow...I really haven't run in 50s and rainy.  I hope the outfit works.

We miss the second B part of B&B due to tomorrow's race.

Driving back...ugh!  9 hours.  At least it will be amazingly gorgeous landscape.

No bathtub in the inn's room.  I'm planning on icebathing in the Willamette River if I have to.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me well wishes for the day.  I'll be thinking about each of you during the race.  Apparently, you can track me on the eugenemarathon.com homepage.  My sister will be sprinting on my bike all over Eugene to try to cheer for me in key spots with the cowbell.  Woo hoo!

Time for sleep!