dear readers:

it is now 4:32 am. i have been up for twenty minutes or so. my marathon is in four hours. i am, somehow, both strangely calm and utterly terrified. and my biggest concern of all? needing to poop.

that's right, pooping is instrumental to the quality of one's race. believe it or not. you may not have realized that a race can hinge on whether or not one can empty one's bowels before running, but truly, nothing else has affected the quality of my long-distance runs like whether or not i've pooed. seriously, using a portapotty in the middle of a run can be a serious buzzkill. if you can't go before a race, you may as well consider yourself doomed. i'm not even kidding.

and currently, i cannot. go. that is.

thus, terror.

UPDATE: 45 minutes, two shots of espresso, and 25 jumping jacks later, VICTORY! everything will be dandy.