As Ready As I'm Going To Be For Mercedes Half Marathon!

Tomorrow is the Mercedes marathon here in Birmingham.  I 'm going to run the half marathon in the morning, not the full marathon.    My friend L and I went to the expo today to pick up our race numbers/chips and shopped a little bit.  I found some really great deals on half off running pants and a long sleeve running shirt.   I also bought another pair of compression socks, pink, of course, and a head band to match.  

I tried to explain to the Murph how much money I saved on everything, but I don't think he bought it.  I really did have a gift certificate to the The Trak Shak, a local running shop, that I needed to use.  That took even more than half off my purchases.   Win Win!!

A group of girl scouts were at the expo selling cookies so I bought some boxes just to support the girl scouts, you know.  I got a box of Thin Mints for the Murph, but he wasn't as thrilled about them as I thought he would be.  Apparently, he's eaten a ton of girl scouts cookies in his life when his daughter was in the Brownies and her mom was the Brownie leader.  He had boxes to last all year.  Oh well, they won't go to waste!

I looked at the weather for tomorrow and discovered that it isn't going to be as cold as I thought it was going to be.  Nope.  Instead of the 22F that was forecast earlier in the week, now it's saying that it's going to be a balmy 29F at the 7 a.m. start and sunny!  No snow, no rain, no windchill!  I'll take it!

• Tonight

  Feb 16

  Mainly clear and coldLo 26°

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• Sun

  Feb 17

  Cool with bright sunshine51°Lo 34°

• Mon

  Feb 18

  Partly sunny and pleasant61°Lo 45°

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• Tue

  Feb 19

  Rain possible in the morning58°Lo 33°

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• Wed

  Feb 20

  Partly sunny52°Lo 33°

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Thunderstorms Monday night

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Forecast	Mostly Clear	Mostly Clear	Mostly Clear	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny	Sunny
Temp (°F)	27°	26°	27°	29°	32°	37°	41°	43°
RealFeel®	29°	28°	29°	30°	34°	42°	48°	50°
Humidity	64%	65%	63%	58%	49%	40%	35%	31%

Vulcan Run

Tomorrow is the annual Vulcan Run here in Birmingham, Alabama.  It is a very popular 10K race in the downtown area that has been going on since 1975.  Since I am tapering for a marathon next weekend and I haven't been doing any speed work lately,  I am probably not going to race.  As always it did cross my mind.  I use to do it every year back in the day and even won some hardware.

As you can see it has been a long time since I've done this race!  Where did the years go?

My favorite awards are the little, miniature Vulcan statue ones.  Cute!  I wonder if they still give them out to the age group winners?

Here's the real 56 foot tall Vulcan statue that sits atop Red Mountain and looks over downtown Birmingham.  It is the largest cast iron statue in the world and a favorite place to go on field trips when I was in first grade.  He is a the Roman God of iron and forge and a symbol of Birmingham.

Even our local triathlon club is called Vulcan Triathletes, named after you know who.

A few years ago I bought this Christmas ornament from the gift shop at Vulcan park.  It hasn't been on a Christmas tree yet because I hung it on the window and forget about it every year.  Maybe this year it will make it to the Christmas tree.

One race I have always wanted to do, but haven't been able to get into is the New York marathon.  I hear they canceled it this year due to Hurricane Sandy.  I think that was the right thing to do especially since the start of the race is in hard hit Staten Island.   I just couldn't imagine running a marathon while there is still all that devastation in the area.  So sad!