Live from Boston

It's day three for Laura and I in Boston. We flew in Friday night and had a very nice shuttle driver. Yesterday, after some problems with our trolley voucher, we did a hop-on, hop-off trolley tour. We stopped at the USS Constitution, known as "Old Ironsides." It was an interesting visitor's center and tour of the boat, the highlight of which was the sailor giving the tour. She attempted to be very enthusiastic but it was definitely forced. She also was very crabby with a group of boy scouts on the tour. I think they were interrupting her, but honestly I couldn’t even hear them. I think generally tour guides should just talk over people, but I guess boy scouts are pretty annoying.

After spending some time at the Boston Marathon expo, we saw a Christopher McDougall "Naked Running Cabaret" at the Boston Public Library. There were several people from the book who spoke as well as an opera singer who sang Caballo Blanco's motivational pre race instructions.

On the bad news front I've had a cold since Wednesday night. It did, however, seem to peak on Friday night and today is the best I've felt since it started. I'm hoping to wake up Monday morning snot-free for the marathon. I'm not as confident now of breaking three hours, but if this cold clears up I should still have a shot.

Today we're going to see some more sights in Boston and do a harbor cruise. Then we'll go back to the expo to listen to a speaker or two and finish seeing the exhibits. If you want to know the definition of cheap, how's this: instead of buying lunch yesterday, we filled up on gel, cliff bars, power bars, yogurt, and cheese samples from the expo. Today we might do it again.

Thanks for all the well-wishes for the race on Monday!