It’s time …

Time to run my third Chicago Marathon! I’ll be up at 5:30ish tomorrow for my final round of carbo-loading, stretching, carbo-loading some more and heading out into the cold to be miserable for a good four-plus hours.

And it’s really supposed to be miserable tomorrow: rainy (80% chance) and cold (high of 44°) and whiny (Jake). I was planning on being all moved into my new place by now, but the developers are taking their sweet, sweet time, so all my cold-weather running gear is still packed away in storage. And so are all my junky old clothes I could wear for the first bit of the marathon and throw away without missing them when I get warm. So I just stopped by my friendly organized clean neighborhood TJ Maxx to buy some cheap sweatpants ($7.99) and a hooded sweatshirt ($12.99) I can wear as long as I need and then throw them away the moment I reach equilibrium. Or the moment they get so drenched they start dragging me down.

Before I head out, I owe many of you a HUGE thanks for your donations to my AIDS Marathon fundraising. My goal was $1,400, but I just checked the numbers, and they top out at $2,740. Some of that money is from family and friends and coworkers who are morally obligated to quantify their love for me monetarily, but a giant part of it is from the complete strangers who read my blog. You people and your generosity truly rock, and I’ll keep your names and stories with me for the whole run tomorrow. Your donations make such a difference in the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS, and I am proud to run and earn the donations you have made on my behalf.

Before I head to bed with my belly full of carbs, I leave you with a look at our final training run last Saturday, where we got PLENTY of practice running in the bitter cold. I hope you enjoy them as much as I didn’t: