Day 99: Bah Hahbah

Sailed up to Maine yesterday, with a stop in Freeport for lunch and to look in the store windows. Even managed to negotiate a dirt-road detour forced by the Ellsworth police -- thanks, fellas!

The plan called for a five-mile run yesterday, but I was convinced to skip it, and to treat tomorrow's half-marathon as a dress rehearsal for the full marathon. After all, there is no running two days before the full marathon, and only a short run the day before. So I skipped yesterday's run -- the first time I've skipped a day with no intention of making up the miles.

This morning I was greeted by a brisk 50-degree Bar Harbor day. I set out for my three miles, easy, at 8:30 -- the starting time tomorrow. Then I came back to the hotel, showered, went to eat some blueberry pancakes, and typed these three paragraphs (it's almost 11:00 now). More to come.

... OK, now it's after 6:30. I learned very quickly that the pre-race pasta dinner is definitely not my scene. An interesting assortment of people, and it seems that some of the race sponsors were working the crowd, trying very hard to be friendly to everyone. Although I guess that's OK, I didn't really need to be there. Even the pasta wasn't my kind of pasta; it was lasagna (or 'lasagne,' if you prefer), very heavy on the ricotta, which I dislike. I've heard of carbo-loading, but not cheese-o-loading. Blech. I got a whole-wheat bagel, some organic fig bars, and dark-chocolate-covered cherries on the way back to the hotel, and I'll nosh and then go to sleep.

A couple of strange things today:

• The Queen Elizabeth 2 is in town, part of its last bit of cruising before it retires to become -- get this -- a floating conference center in Dubai. I didn't recognize it as such because yesterday, when I pulled into Bar Harbor (er, in my car), there was a giant cruise ship here, one of the mega-ships of the current generation. So today, when I saw the QE2, it looked so small I thought it must have been something else. But there was Cunard lettering on the side, and I put QE2 and QE2 together, and I figured it out. The town was full of elderly people, some with funny accents, and all the shops had "10% CRUISER DISCOUNT" signs in their windows, which gave an interesting feel to the sidewalk.

• Race registration was limited to 400. My number: 405.

Who would like to place a bet on when I'll fall asleep tonight? Man, I hope it's early. Tonight's goal: build up full strength. Reach peak at exactly 8:30 tomorrow morning... and maintain it for 13.1 miles.