Exciting and scary

Now that taping has begun, I am thinking more about the logistics of the Montreal half, which is in 16 days. Some of my questions include:

1. Where should I stay in Montreal? I have to book my Air B&B TODAY.
2. What should I bring?
3. How will I get to the start?
4. Will I have enough battery juice on my phone for pre and post race activities?
5. What should I put on my race music playlist?
6. Will I have to poop or pee during the race.

I have been somewhat spoiled by living in the “sometimes” great city of New York because there are plenty of races here and I am an expert at navigating out metro system. I will b sure to give myself EXTRA, EXTRA time getting to the start by navigating Montreal’s metro system. I will probably end up taking an Uber anyway ;).  This will be my first race outside of NYC, so it is kind of cool and scary at the same time.

I “Strava’d” the course so I will have a better feel for the turn-by-turn play.

Montreal Half Marathon Route

The course looks pretty nice, which a lot of potential photo opportunities (maybe there leaves will have started to turn orange, red, and yellow), but the last 5 km are uphill, which I am not looking forward to. It could be worse if I were to do the full Marathon because there is about an 8 mile steady incline after the 10th mile. That said, it will be nice to get a different perspective of the city from a runner’s point of view. One thing that I did not anticipate is that the locations of liquid stations are not too consistent because they are either 1.5 or 2 miles apart. Typically, I have been training to take a sip of water every mile after mile 5 during races. This means that I’m going to have to rethink my hydrating strategy. However, it should not be that big of a deal because I am doing the half-marathon but it may have been problematic if I was running the full marathon.

I just remembered another goal that I have not completed for this race. When I decided to run this race, I really wanted to gain a better grasp of the french language. Enough of a grasp to have a basic conversation with some of the Montreal residents (I’m a bit of a chatter) in their native tongue. Last Christmas, I bought Rosetta Stone’s program for French and I kept at it for a few weeks but I never completed the program. 😦 Maybe I will try to learn French for next year’s trip to Montreal.

For this weekend, I plan to do a 5-7 mile race tempo run and some cross training.

Anyone have tips for tapering or getting rid of the nervousness of running in a different city in another country?