The night before

It's the night before the big race and my third day in Boston and boy it's cold! The much anticipated big storm arrived bringing snow to large areas of the north-eastern United States and heavy rain and plunging temperatures in the Boston region.

I doubt the temperature got above 4 or 5 degrees all day and the wind chill factor would have been well below zero.

I was amazed at the fortitude of some of the marathon volunteers. This photo (above) really doesn't do justice to what this guy directing human traffic for the pre-race dinner had to put up with - bitterly cold winds and driving, sleeting rain. The volunteers have been amazing. There's literally hundreds of them and all are incredibly friendly and supportive.

The weather is forecast to ease only slightly. If it continues, the race will be a challenge. Race organisers have issued a hypothermia alert for tomorrow and put in place additional medical arrangements to cater for the many runners who are likely to pull out of the race due to the cold.

There's even been some discussion of canceling the race, but that has never happened in the 111 year history of the event and I am sure it will take place as planned. Every runner I have talked to remains excited about tomorrow and is looking forward to the challenge of confronting the elements. I know I am.

I went to the pre-race dinner tonight and met runners from Chicago, Mexico and Canada. It has been great to compare notes on our running experiences. Despite differences in language and culture we are really all that not different no matter where we come from in the world.

I am been trying to catch up with results from Canberra and well done to everyone. There were some fantastic performances, including from those in my Pink Arrows group. I look forward to reading race reports.

It is 8.45 Sunday evening in Boston as I write this and I need to be up in time to catch the 5.15 am transport from the hotel. Jet lag has been a real pest again on this trip and I haven't been sleeping well. But I don't think I would expect to sleep well anyway. The butterflies in my stomach have also got jet lag and are going ballistic.

And so it has come down to this. At 10 am tomorrow (midnight eastern Australian time Monday) I will start on the final leg of my journey that began when I first read about this race in 1984. When I think back over all the disappointments and challenges I have faced in my life before I became a runner I don't think in a million years I could ever have envisaged the day I would run in a Boston Marathon. Even now, hours from the start, I don't think I can still quite believe it.

As all of us do before a marathon we need to confront our fears - fear of the cold, fear of the distance, fear of the pain, fear of embarrassment, fear of failure; the fear that emerges from my lack of preparation and poor lead-up form. Yet this is why we do it don't we? We want to stand in front of the monster, scream at it, and prove who is boss.

Tomorrow I am going to show who is boss - "I have promises to keep"
Robert Frost (US poet)