Change of Plans

So you make a plan, and a major part of the plan is that you plan to stick to the plan...

I received an email from the race organizers with several tidbits of information. The tidbit that caught my eye was:

WE RECOMMEND ARRIVING NO LATER THAN 5:00 AM  TO CLEAR THE HEIGHTENED SECURITY SCREENING AND TAKE CARE OF PERSONAL NEEDS BEFORE THE 1^ST START. DO NOT COUNT ON START DELAYS. 

My plan was to wake up at 4:30 on race morning and spend the next hour-ish getting dressed, eating, and "taking care of personal needs" in a leisurely fashion, in the comfort of a warm hotel room with a clean toilet. Then I was going to walk over to the start area and plan to arrive before 6 - plenty of time to drop off a bag, take care of any last-minute personal needs and get all lined up and ready to go.

But it sounds as though the plan will have to change a little. Maybe beef up the expendable pre-race warm layer, anticipate standing in a few long lines... not to mention waking up a bit earlier. No big deal. In the grand scheme of things, this is the easiest kind of planning change, since there's plenty of notice. It's the ones in the middle of the race when your brain is mush and you can't think straight that are a little trickier. That should be part of the plan too. Hope for no surprises, but expect the unexpected.

The other tidbits of information in the email that I didn't already know were my bib number and corral color. I'll be in the "maroon" corral, which is cool because maroon is in the top ten of my all-time favorite color names. It just sounds cool. Mah-rOOn. I realize that >50% of the Austinites reading this now are not amused by that, and in fact may even despise me for suggesting that maroon is actually part of the visible spectrum. I have no verbal response for that.

My bib number of course, allows me to start playing Chris's super-superstitious numerology game. 491 is another super lucky number, as usual. 1 and 9 are lucky right off the bat. And 4-1 = 3, so that covers three of the four lucky numbers. 9-4+1 = 6... they're all there! Furthermore, 4 x 9 x 1 = 36! And 4/91 = 0.(043956), 0+4+3+9+5+6 = 27, then 2+7 = 9! If you keep going and add another repeat, you get 54, and 5+4 = 9! A *third* round gets you 81, and 8+1 = (wait for it...) 9!  It should come as no surprise that if you add 1,369 repeats together, you get 36,963, whose digits add up to 27, and then we're back to 2+7 which is 9. I'm still amazed that I always get such good numbers!

Enough silliness. I am going to go revise my plan.